


No Hard Feelings

by Sassafras26



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Gay Shiro (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) has ADD, M/M, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, broganes, there will also be descriptions of dubious consent in a flashback, there will be descriptions of flashbacks, this can be skipped however because I'll write it in a separate chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2020-06-28 06:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19806487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sassafras26/pseuds/Sassafras26
Summary: Keith has a funny way of getting Shiro out of his apartment. It had been a rough year of recovery after coming back from a traumatic service in the Garrison Airforce, and instead of turning his apartment into a permanent den of despair and darkness, Keith signed him up to become a camp counsellor to force him out into the world again.Which might have been fine. If only it didn’t include zero privacy, about 12 small children completely under his care and a really hot counsellor sharing his bunk bed.And for Lance, there was something about Shiro he was sure he remembers, from a dream or maybe just many years ago. He will have to wait to find out that this wasn’t the first time he’s met Takashi Shirogane.





	1. Are you sure about this?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Thank you so much for reading mine and yawakawaiarts' fic from our Camp Counsellor Shance AU!  
> This is a serious labour of love, we are both very excited to continue updating this fan fic every second Sunday, so be on the look out for an update!
> 
> The artwork was done by my friend https://yawarakaiarts.tumblr.com/ PLEASE DON'T REPOST THEIR ART  
> They will post the art on their blog so you can reblog from there!

Chapter 1: Are you sure about this?

Shiro has known his brother for many years now, and he knows by now that whenever he gets a drop-of-the-hat idea that he wants to go with, two things happen. Keith makes sure he follows through with the idea, and Shiro gets a bad feeling about it.

“Stop glaring at the road, you’ll crack it,” Keith said in humour, cracking a grin of his own at Shiro staring in concentrated thought out the front window of Keith’s red pickup. Shiro huffed back in reply, shifting his dark grey eyes back at his little brother.

“I’m not ready for this.” He said with a resigned shake of his head.

“You don’t know that. You think you know that, ‘same way you think keeping yourself locked up in the apartment is gonna help you with recovery, but- “

“Fresh air, interaction and taking small steps, yeah.” Shiro cut him off.  
This is a conversation that has happened a whole lot since Keith decided the best way to help Shiro stop being a gremlin refusing to leave his apartment was to sign him up, along with himself, to work as a Camp Counsellor. Yeah, one of those cargo shorts, plastic smile, let’s-sing-Disney-songs-around-a-fire _Camp Counsellor._

It hadn’t been a good year.

Shiro had come back from service from the Garrison Air Force Army losing more than just four years of possible space discovery opportunities. His right arm had suffered from the crash of his aircraft, and with barely any of the limb intact below his right shoulder, it had to be amputated. The Garrison showed their guilt well though, Sam Holt himself designed his prosthetic both as an order and as Shiro’s friend, making him an arm of metal and a million wires, light as air, enabling fluid movement by connecting to the muscle and nerves in his shoulder.

They also paid him like they promised and discharged him with gratitude for his service. That’s the problem with believing in an institution like the Garrison. They want space exploration, the army gives them the funding, and the best candidates are encouraged to go on tours when said army thinks it needs more soldiers.

Shiro thought it was for the best. He was promised a higher position upon his return, the chance to lead a mission to space. In Hindsight, he should have just politely declined and stayed in his position.

“This is it.” Keith pulled up to a dirt car park up next to a sparse few cars, and his old car screeched a little in protest as they parked. Keith jokes his car is happier going faster, since it squeaks so badly when he breaks.

Shiro dropped the pessimism a little when he looked around them. They were in the middle of the woods for sure; the sun streamed into the clearing like it was brimming over the boundary of the tall, dense trees. Down from the parking lot was the main cabin, standing out from the backdrop of dark trees with light, sun drenched wood planks. It had quaint, large square-separated windows all around it and a veranda with some equipment cupboards pressed to the side.

“Nice.” Shiro muttered, stepping out the car to feel a light morning breeze smooth over his face. He’s feeling suddenly really good about this. The wilderness of quiet, serene nature all around him, six weeks outside in the sun, no noisy busy city below his apartment block. This might actually be good for him; dare he be optimistic and say _fun?_

"Alright, we're gonna get you settled in before these kids get here, so let's go see Allura and she'll set you up." Keith called, already padding up the wooden steps of the larger cabin and through the door. Keith’s been doing this for four years now, but it’s still surprising to see his excitement. Shiro stopped a moment to take in the quiet clearing around them and smiled a little, able to spot brightly coloured climbing walls and playgrounds just to the left through the trees, and a winding path to the right to a series of smaller buildings in a separate clearing. When Shiro turned back around to go up the stairs himself he promptly smacked into another guy in the doorway.

"Sorry! Sorry- I should have seen you there." Shiro smiled in embarrassment, looking down at the shorter guy he had caught from bouncing back off his chest.

The shorter man blinked in some kind of shock and frowned, his sharp eyebrows drawing down in a harsh and expressive line. He backed up, and Shiro awkwardly watched the pattern his blue eyes took- white hair tuft, the pink scar across his the bridge of his nose, and the hard chest he had smacked into. Shiro held out his right hand to shake.

"Hope I didn't do too much damage. I'm Shiro by the way."

Blue eyes darted to the metal fingers stretched out from the sleeve of his black hoodie. Shiro felt like crawling back to Keith’s pickup and driving right back into his bed. The guy, whoever he was, reached out hesitantly but took his hand in a surprisingly assured squeeze.

The man who was shaking his hand looked a lot younger than Shiro, maybe just a little younger than Keith, and dressed in his camp uniform already; a blue ‘camp Voltron’ t-shirt and cargo pants. He’s kind of skinny but there’s muscle enough in him to be strong. After a delayed second the other opened his mouth.

“You’re hot.”

Shiro looked at him with wide eyes, completely caught off guard. Not by the curt introduction, just the way that he had said it. As if a statement, said to someone else who wasn’t Shiro, a statement that didn’t belong to Shiro in the first place.

That’s a bold statement coming from a man so pretty, too.

“Ah.. thank you? You too.” Shiro let his hand go and felt a little thrill for replying so boldly, running a hand through the short hair at the back of his head. He hasn’t had guy experience since before his tour, and that was ballsy for a first encounter.

It looked like it was a bit bold for the unnamed pretty guy, who’s eyes were blown a little wide.  
“Well, I should go inside, I need to get settled in.” Shiro said curtly, smiling at the blue eyed man before he could comment and trotted up to Keith’s side, so he didn’t lose the only person he knew there.

Keith was already speaking to someone else when Shiro met with him.

“Shiro, this is Allura. She owns the Voltron Camp.”

Allura was a confident young woman, maybe around Shiro’s age, with a welcoming smile and really striking features. Her shock of white hair was already scooped up into a loose bun, but it was a beautiful contrast against her dark skin and electric blue eyes. She was already sporting a t-shirt with the logo for the camp blazed proudly across the front in loud colours, and graciously shook Shiro’s hand.

“Welcome to the team Shiro!” She had a soft, but assertive English accent. “I’m so glad to have an extra pair of hands this summer, last year it was quite the strain on the other counsellors with the amount of children who arrived.”

"I'm happy to be here. Keith's definitely come out of his shell by working here so he thought I would have the same thing... I hope I don't disappoint you." Shiro really was far too sincere, but he had always tackled tasks with his all.

Allura shuffled a few papers around in her hands, presumably through his credentials and medical needs, and that’s when two others walked into the main cabin. The guy from a few moments ago was one of them, now with some kind of luggage thrown over his shoulder, and a smaller person at his side. Shiro’s eyes widened.

_“Katie?”_

“Shiro!?” Katie- or rather Pidge Holt- dropped their backpack and ran over to greet Shiro, tackling his middle in a hug. That’s a face he hasn’t seen in many years as well... not in person at least. But he knows the signature fluffy Holt hair and Matt’s glasses anywhere.

“You’re taller.” Shiro said through a laugh, his large arms wrapping around Pidge and giving her a squeeze before he let her go.

“ _Har-dee-har_ , I know I’m short. Also, it’s Pidge now,” They said with a nonetheless pleased smile, patting Shiro on the chest. “I didn’t know you decided to sign up! This is great, another person to balance out our loss of IQ with Lance here.”

“Hey!! I’m graduating next year, just cuz you skipped a few years-”

“Yeah, from _high school_.” Pidge leered back.

Lance, huh. That’s a familiar name from years of Keith’s phone calls and letters, all peppered with the name Lance; a certain loud-mouth idiot that had been running up Keith’s summers with a one-sided rivalry and seriously pushing his little brothers’ buttons. Shiro was glad to have Pidge here though, another person he could talk to, but Lance drew his attention. He wasn’t at all like how Keith described him.

Lance seemed full of energy compared to how he had bumped into him before. His playful smile drew his eye and the sparkles of mischief in his sharp eyes wasn’t what he expected, and there seemed to be an energy bouncing around in him; he seemed always to be throwing his arms around and shifting from foot to foot as he bickered with Pidge.

This guy didn’t seem argumentative and aggressive like how Keith makes him out to be.

Allura cleared her throat to get a handle back on Lance and Pidge’s friendly argument.

"We're happy to have you, Shiro. Team, this is our newest camp counsellor, he goes by Shiro and I expect all of you to make him feel welcomed." Allura introduced, and 4 pairs of eyes turned on him. Shiro blushed a little bit in his ears, taking a breath in. "Hi, nice to meet you all."

Shiro isn’t shy, that’s not the case. For most of his life he’s been confident, assured of himself. He’s been a leader. And in the air force, he was a good team leader for their squad. He isn’t _shy._

But he doesn’t like people staring at him after he was injured, it makes him squirm.

Lance zipped out of the conversation quickly and Shiro’s eyes followed him curiously as he skipped uninterrupted to the door at the back of the cabin, opening up from the kitchen. Pidge and Keith came over to talk to each other to catch up from the last time they met, but for Shiro he was trying to peer into the kitchen to see what Lance was in such a rush for.

“That’s Lance.” Keith muttered, realising Shiro had been a little distracted. Shiro snapped out of his concentrated stare and looked down at his two friends.

“Oh, yeah I figured. He seems like a good guy.” That prompted a little embarrassed smile from his brother, and Shiro could tell it was because Keith thinks the same.

“He is,” Pidge supplied, “Lance will help you out with nearly everything if you puppy-dog eye him. Unless you’re Keith and you’re his most _bitter rival_ to the very end.” They smirked,  
elbowing Keith in his gut. Keith grunted and crossed his arms fiercely, the way he’s always done since he was a kid, looking away from both of them. “Shut up, you know he barely says that kind of shit anymore.”

“Yeah cuz you guys aren’t like, 20 anymore.” The door at the back burst open again, a large man with a file in hand and orange bandana around his head rushing over to the group. Behind him, Lance sauntered over with his hands in his pockets, looking smug about something.

“Sorry, sorry I’m late! Checking out the kitchens and prepping lunch,” He beamed at Shiro and shook his hand excitedly, almost out of breath. “Hey, I’m Hunk! I work as the chef here as well as a counsellor. We’re so glad you’re here man, it was a nightmare last year.”

Shiro smiled and shook his hand back. “Shiro, good to meet you Hunk.”

“Hunk, my guy, about that food situation?” Lance interjected, slinging his arm around Hunk’s shoulder and leaning heavily on his side.

“Stocked up. Got your stuff for your diet challenge too.”

Lance and Hunk exchanged a kind of handshake as they took their seats. Shiro felt a smile twitch across his face. Not young enough to get involved in silly rivalry, but still not old enough to drop secret friend handshakes?

Soon enough everyone else sat down, Allura organised a pile of paper. Lance and Hunk saddled up next to each other and he stuck by Keith’s side, Allura to his other side.

"Alright everyone, another summer, another six weeks of fun!" She announced, triumphantly putting her forms down in front of her.

"I have already put you into cabins. Sorry, Lance, no calling dibs." She shrugged, supposedly a follow on from a previous conversation. "Hunk, you're set for kitchen and yellow cabin, regrettably we're full this year again and need all the help we can get." Allura seemed genuinely apologetic about it, and Hunk sighed with a heavy shrug.

“It is what it is, I’ll do my best.” Hunk said dutifully.

"Pidge is green cabin. I will need you for planting, tree science, trail reading and tech support." Pidge nodded to that, eyes gliding back to their phone that they had been tinkering with under the wooden table.

"Keith, you're head of red cabin and will do archery, safety and knife skills, and Coran will need some help where possible with campfires and tenting this year." Keith nodded once and grunted affirmation, from what Shiro had been told that’s normally what he does anyway, he certainly can’t imagine his little brother planting sunflowers or braiding friendship chains. Of course, he would be the _‘anything with danger, I’ll take’_ guy.

"Lance," Lance was now highly focusing on Allura, something of a twinkle of admiration in his eyes and a dopey smile. Shiro can tell exactly what Lance is thinking the way he’s broadcasting it on his face, he had a fierce admiration for Allura, and by extension maybe a fierce crush as well.

"You're in blue cabin with Shiro, since he's new and will need your help settling him in with his tasks."

Lance’s bright expression dropped off his face like sharing with Shiro was the worst thing he could have heard.

"Allura, with all respect, I'm not-" She raised a hand and Lance’s mouth shut like a hinged trap.

"No. No changes. Say what you want, I don't care. Pidge had to do it last year, I did it the year before. Blue cabin, with Shiro. Last word. You two will also do all the aquatic sports and swimming this year."

Shiro’s sharp eyes watched Lance’s expression the whole time, and how the other sunk back into his chair with a dark pout directed at the table, then pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded. Lance looked like he was boiling. Was it because he didn't want to room with him? He felt rather juvenile thinking that way, like he’s some unpopular kid people, but Lance had seemed to like him enough even if he was the new guy. It's probably just something about the water stuff he doesn’t like.

After they were dismissed to start getting packed and ready into the cabins.

\---------------------

"What's blue cabins deal?" Shiro asked Keith as he pulled his duffel bag from the trunk, hauling it over his shoulder. Keith made a noise and shrugged, looking up at him a little sympathetically.

“It's fine, just you're not in your own room. You gotta share with the kids, but it's not so bad." Keith promised, slamming the trunk down.

Shiro felt a tiny inner panic ripple through his chest. The nightmares and sleep paralysis Shiro suffered from were the first worry to come to mind. There would be no privacy for a bad night. In his early recovery they were every night; both brothers had lost sleep from it, as Keith was a light sleeper and would run into Shiro’s bedroom in a flash to wake him, stay up by his side, or talk him through his panic.

Keith was a very good man. A good brother to him.

His disturbed sleep had lessened, partly from working through it with his therapist, partly through getting the medication he needed that helped when it came to sleeping.

Shiro has always been something of a perfectionist; despite being assured that progress in recovery after being involved in a war so intense as the one he’s been through might be a little irregular, lots of ups and downs, he felt fiercely guilty that after a year he wasn’t back to how he used to be. It scared him to think he would never be the same. He didn't tell Keith that.

Shiro had this feeling the last year that he’s a _disruption_ for Keith. It’s an awful thought, and he would love to think Keith wants to be here helping him, but he can’t help but feel he’s holding him back from… everything.

At any rate, Shiro was going to grin and bear sleeping in the group. He never wrote down on his forms about his problems sleeping since he assumed that they got private rooms! He can't bring it up either because he doesn't want to discuss it with Allura and make a fuss. Besides, that guy Lance already seems a little ruffled up.

Maybe Shiro will have a good few weeks of sleep? Yeah...yeah it's fine. Yeah.

Lance bounded up to his side then, suitcase pulled up under one arm and something of a pleased grin was on his face, forced or not.

“Hey Shiro, Mullet Man.” He greeted. Keith tossed his bag at Lance’s chest.

“I had a haircut, It’s not even vaguely like a mullet anymore!” Keith retorted and took his bag back on the way past, waving so-long to them both as he marched up the path to get to his cabin.

Shiro turned to Lance and smiled politely. "Looking forward to working with you, Lance."

"Well, me too." Lance sighed, defeated. "But as much as I'm looking forward to it, I really, _really_ hate blue cabin. The kids smell, you can't get proper sleep, we have to shower last and then we also have to take them to breakfast." He listed.

It looked like Lance was silently boiling, but at least it was about workload and not about working with the new guy.

Lance had a very intense face. Not to say he looked serious at all, the opposite actually, just that it seemed like Lance was constantly broadcasting every thought he had straight into his expression. It was fun to watch it, and Shiro found that he had to rip his eyes away when Lance turned to him and looked into his eyes. Lance continued, just as energetic as before.

“Now, don't get me wrong, I love kids, I love working here, have been the past five years, but twelve kids for six entire weeks 24/7 is Hell. Trust me. I experienced that cabin once already, alone. They'll put your hand in warm water at night, they'll jump on you, they'll ask you to read twenty good night stories, you'll have to take them to the toilet, blah blah...it only gets worse.”  
Well that certainly makes Siro hopeful for a good six weeks.

“Unless you're like, into that stuff. Then have fun." Lance chuckled a little and took his walkie-talkie out. "Imma quickly explain this to you, you’ll get your own soon anyway. Phones don't work out here, we only get one hour of Wi-Fi every evening and it's pretty slow, so I usually leave my phone in my car for the whole six weeks that we're here. Up to you, though."

Lance turned the walkie-talkie around. "This button is a press-to-talk one. Just say over at the end of your talk, like in the movies. This button is to show you which walkie-talkie you are connected with, see the glowing five? Five is Pidge, Coran numbered them after height.”  
He laughed through that statement like it was an inside joke. Shiro just stayed quiet and hummed to acknowledge that he was understanding what Lance was saying to him.

“I'm two, Hunk is one, Allura is four, Keith is three. You’ll get line six. Coran is seven- don't ask, he likes the number. Anyways, if you need to reach all of us at once, it's line ten. Just for emergencies like a fire or something like that, or if a kid is lost or dead."

Lance was obviously joking but Shiro couldn’t help a little shudder. These were thick woods and kids were clumsy and adventurous. "You'll go grab Pidge and make them give you a walkie-talkie, I'll take our bags to cabin blue - sounds like a plan?

"Sounds good,” Shiro said with an assured nod of his head.

This was not good. By the end of Lance’s rant Shiro could feel dread start creeping into his chest and an overwhelming need to pull Keith aside and say he's going the hell back to his apartment to become a permanent blanket burrito. Okay, that did sound bad. No wonder they wanted an extra pair of hands, it's to keep control of all those kids. Lance made a grabby hand for his bag.

“Thanks Lance, but you sure you can carry it all?"

Lance blew out air and waved the question away with a confident shrug.

“Sure I can, I’m not just a pretty face you know.” Shiro had to arch an eyebrow, but he slid the bag off his shoulder and gave it to Lance. The other man dipped a little under new weight and steadied himself, confident grin wavering for just a second.

 _“You made it look way lighter,”_ Lance mumbled, and Shiro couldn’t help a little laugh as he started walking away over to Pidge.

"See you in the cabin, Lance." Shiro called out. Lance gave a little wave before he started trotting down the same path Keith had taken.

\---------------------

“Hey, Keith!” Lance called out to the other as he stumbled down the gravel path to the cabins. Keith looked up from the porch of the Red Cabin and hurried down the path to take Shiro’s bag, taking some of the weight off Lance’s shoulders.

“Should have known you couldn’t carry both your luggage and Shiro’s. Not with all the junk that you bring with you." Keith smirked. Lance grumbled and pouted.

“It’s not _junk.._ ” Lance hauled his suitcase up again and turned to walk over to the Blue Cabin. "Come on Keith, let's get this stuff dropped off it's heavy."

Lance looked at Keith from the corner of his eye. Shiro had looked at him with such fond eyes, he wondered if that was a look of interest in Keith. Or something similar.

Blue cabin used to be painted in ultramarine, but it peeled and bleached to a very dull and dirty turquoise. Lance might call it rustic since he has a certain love for the Blue Cabin even if it’s a damn hassle. It was big, almost as big as the main hall. Lance had taken the key and shoved it into the old lock, turning it. It was weird how this place seemed so old but every summer felt like this was a new experience; it was like year one at camp, like discovering this place anew.

  
"I call top." Lance called and threw his stuff on the top bunk. Keith snickered.

“What, shaking things up?” He asked. Lance threw a shirt at him.

Shiro will sleep right under his bed. He smiled at that. Shiro seemed kind of faraway to him, it seemed a nice idea to him to have Shiro close.

"Sooo, you and Shiro?" Lance asked, innocently.

Keith snapped his eyes up and actually huffed out a laugh.

"What? No, no no. I'm his younger brother, god, no." Keith started to laugh. Lance looked a little bad at first for his mix up but he found it so funny he burst out laughing too.

"Oh, I'm sorry! It just- you looked so close." They chit chatted a little further about Shiro, until Keith got called over to red cabin. He's not always an ass, Lance had to admit. He scratched his back idly when he was alone in the cabin. There was something familiar about Shiro. About his appearance and voice. He couldn't tell what.

\---------------------

"Walkie-talkie, work belt with carabiners, med kit, keys, schedule and food card - that's all!" Pidge ticked a list and smiled at Shiro. "Take care, Lance can be.. _.insufferable_ at times. Make sure to shower before him, he likes to take his time. Now, go fetch Lance and then be here at 10AM, when the busses and parents with their kids arrive." They said and put the clipboard away. "Talk to you soon."

Shiro nodded, the various stuff fitting neatly in the arch of his arms across his chest.

"Thanks, Pidge, I appreciate your help. I'll see you later." Shiro smiled at them, turning away to head towards the blue painted building feeling a lot more at ease. The equipment he could handle, that was always reliable and familiar to him. Shiro walked into the cabin, eyes darting to all the many tiny beds, the cute and quaint painting of their frames, faded, and the layout of the cabin he would be enjoying and despairing in for the next six weeks. He spotted Lance in his bunk and smiled kindly, glad he wasn't left alone just yet.

Lance looked up from where he sprawled out on the top bunk, reading a book. From the cover it was some kind of epic romance.

"Hey." Shiro greeted, walking over and putting his stuff down on the bed below Lance, glad to see Keith had set his bag at the head of it. Shiro may as well unpack a few things.

"The shower is in the cabin, right?" He asked, remembering Pidge's warning. A guy this pretty probably did spend a long time making sure he was clean and groomed well, especially if his face, completely cleared of blemishes, had anything to show of it.

"Hm? Oh, yeah." Lance looked up from his book and smiled down at Shiro from his bunk. Shiro started to put things on his bed, so he didn’t notice when Lance stole a few more glances. Lance just couldn't tell what it was, but something seemed so familiar about this man. Lance took a look at his watch.

"Ah, shoot - Shiro, the kids are coming in a few minutes, we should go back to main hall - you'll get time to unpack all your stuff tonight."

Shiro stood up from packing while Lance made a show of getting out of bed, instead of climbing down the ladder he practically jumped down.

"Alright, here we go." There was something of resistance in his voice that made Shiro grimace a little. He took Lance's lead, pushing his medicines deep into his bag and following him outside. It wasn't a secret he needed medicine, to calm his nerves both in his mind, he never hid that from Allura in his forms.

_God, he hopes he doesn’t regret this._

Just as the pair arrived next to the rest of the team, the earliest bus drove up in the parking lot. As soon as the kids started getting out the bus, Lance suddenly seemed to buzz with excitement. He bounced around the counsellors pointing out the kids from previous years he could see getting off the buses, and alarmingly quickly his mood changed from resignation for the upcoming six weeks to a real joy. He came bounding back up to Shiro and eagerly patted his arm.

"Look at them!! With their tiny bags and the scout badges and- _God._ " He mumbled. Shiro watched the kids look out the windows with excitement, clustering to see the cabins and equipment all laid out beyond, jumping out their parents’ cars and buses with their little suitcases and backpacks; the parents who had driven them out to the camp giving them kisses goodbye. They seemed as nervous as Shiro was.

“Yeah... cute kids, huh?” It was sweet, and it actually made him really excited the way they were buzzing with excitement. Lance wasn't far off that... It was pretty cute though, how he was just as excited despite his age, and actually it was rubbing off on him so that Shiro couldn't help but smile at the smaller.

"Alright, Lance, calm yourself." Keith sighed. “You always look like you’re gonna steal one, it’s like watching a kid debating on taking a puppy.”

“Hey!” Lance snapped back, but Allura nodded.

"Don't freak the kids out.” The calm instruction was like pouring water on a fire but even when Lance was grumbling about being spoilsports, he obeyed. As Allura gave her welcoming speech Shiro used the moment to take a step back and assess his situation.

There was a clear pecking order here. Allura took place at the top of it; her gentle hand still commanded respect, she held her leadership status very well amongst some strong and abrasive personalities. God knows if she could tame Keith then she must have some things up her sleeve Shiro hasn’t seen yet.

Keith seemed to slot in second. From what he had said about Lance before coming here that had rubbed Lance the wrong way, who was in hot third.

Pidge may be little but they’re confident and has a clear handle on how to do their job, and Hunk while he had a key role as apparent chef for the camp he was a very soft touch and looked like he would rather just go along with what Allura told him.

Shiro realised he must have been looking rather serious because Lance was looking straight at him with an unsure expression, before he grinned at Shiro with a devilish squint. Lance knew Allura’s introduction off by heart and so stood behind her, before he mouthed it with her, exaggerating every movement of his mouth.

Shiro’s smile grew wide and he struggled to suppress a giggle, especially as the kids who saw him started giggling too. It only egged Lance on, and his performance made it increasingly hard to keep composure. Allura caught on and her brilliant crystal eyes shot daggers at Lance as she spoke.

“-and always remember to _listen_ ,” She pulled on Lance’s ear and pinged it back as he broke his impressions to try and grab hold of his ear again. _“to your cabin counsellors.”_

Shiro grinned at Lance until he caught Keith’s unimpressed eye. Shiro’s smile slid off his face and he cleared his throat. It was funny. Keith’s stare turned into a stabbing flicker to Allura who was very much expecting him to introduce himself to the group of many large pair of eyes. Shiro blushed a little and cleared his throat.

"Oh- I'm Shiro, I'm your blue cabin leader along with Lance here." He nodded and gestured at Lance, with his pleading gaze asking him to take on most of the introductions. He should have been paying attention instead of staring at Lance being cute, God that's embarrassing for a first impression.

"Alright, everybody." Lance snapped right back into place, shoving himself in front of Shiro when he clocked on very quickly that Shiro was caught off his guard. "We're the blue cabin leaders. Blue cabin is larger and better than the other cabins, 'specially red cabin, so when we assign you guys your cabins I want to hear a big cheer that you made it into the _best cabin ever!"_ Lance made his announcement with gusto, making possibly the best first impression to these wide-eyed kids who giggled at him like he was the funniest guy ever.

"We're going to let you say goodbye to your parents and then take all your bags to the cabin. Shiro and I here will then tell you everything else important that you need to know. And yes, rules included, I know they suck, but they are very important if you don't want a bear to eat you!" He joked, so everyone giggled.

“And I’m Keith, leader of the red cabin.” Keith stepped up next to Lance and for a second they levelled each other the same heavy stare before Keith turned to look at the kids.

 _‘Ah’,_ Shiro thought, _‘there’s that rivalry.’_

“In my cabin, I expect good behaviour and for you guys to give your all in the activities; be the example to everyone else. My cabin has been the winner of the final camp competition for three years now, so when I call your names out _I_ want to see your _victory move_.” Everyone made their introductions and as Allura called out the names of children and their cabin they were shy at first doing their respective moves and shouts, but by the first ten everyone was screaming their loudest, dancing their best and high fiving the hardest as they lined up in front of their leaders.

“Alright guys, let’s get this show on the road!” Lance cheered as he reared their set of twelve kids down the gravel path. Shiro walked alongside Lance and sighed heavily.

“Lance, I don’t have a lot of experience-“

“Say no more, big guy.” Lance cut him off with a flourish of his hand, tilting his head up to smile boldly into Shiro’s uncertain eyes.

"Now, we'll let them pick their beds, some might argue over top bunk so you'll need to make them play a game and distract them, winner sleeps top bunk. And then I'll give them a quick rundown of rules, okay? At 11AM, when we've settled them in, we'll head to the lake for swimming. At 12.30PM they're off to archery with Mul- er I, mean Keith…” Lance brought a hand up and tugged his hair a little bit, clearing his throat from some kind of near miss. “Then we'll get the next group until 1.30 and break for lunchtime! Starting pretty simple. Got it so far?"

Shiro felt like he was trying to tread water here, and that the water level seemed to keep on fucking rising, but other than that he was okay.

"Game for top bunk, rules, 11.00 swimming, hand over, 13.30 lunch. Rodger." Shiro repeated, "Nothing I can't handle. If I could deal with Keith when he was 12, I can deal with these kids too no problem."

Lance looked at him with a little wrinkle in nose and tilted his head.

“You know a lot about Keith then, huh?” He asked. Shiro passed his own quizzical little look back at Lance, dark eyebrow arching up his forehead. Surely Lance knows he’s his brother. Right? Keith can’t be so much of a recluse that he hasn’t told his co-workers he has an older brother.

“Of course, he’s-“

“’Scuse me,” Shiro turned to his side and looked around the dark treeline, eventually looking down to where a very small girl with flaming red hair was staring up at him.

Shiro smiled down at her and waved with his right hand. "Hey. What's up? You need something?" He asked, hoping he wasn't being too casual with kids. What was an acceptable way of speaking with kids? Was he being patronising!? The little girl shuffled a bit and fiddled with her backpack straps before she finally took a breath in.

"Are you like... part _robot?"_ She asked. A giggle rippled through their group. Shiro laughed softly too, if a little awkward, and dropped his prosthetic to his side.

"Just the arm. The rest is all human, I promise. Still trying to work out the _lasers_ on this thing though." The girl’s eyes went large like saucers and she grabbed his metal arm, turning it and exploring its groves as they walked. Shiro nearly jerked his arm back if the little girl didn’t look so curious, and when she had explored, she just held his hand. It melted his damn heart.

“I’m Connie.” She said. Shiro smiled wide and nodded.

“I’m Shiro. Happy to meet you, Connie.”

Lance looked at the exchange with the softest gaze, pressing his lips into a line to suppress his grin. He had been worried, Shiro was kind of a stick-in-the-mud type of guy, but he had potential. Potential and a cute butt.

Shiro and Lance both had a hassle with trying to organise their brood before they were scheduled to be in the lake for swimming. It took them a lot longer than he expected, and Shiro did have to make a few kids stop crying over their loss of top bunk, too. But Lance knew his way with children, told them why the lower bunk was cool too and they all seemed more or less pleased over it.

As Lance watched Shiro pass backpacks up to the kids on their bunks unpacking their pyjamas and sometimes a toy, he became distracted, gazing at the way he smiled and spoke with this naturally soothing voice. What was it that made him so familiar? There was this.. _.something,_ but it was hidden so deep and Lance struggled to pick out what it was.

He can tell it’s going to drive him up the wall.

"Everyone settled in, bags under beds?” Lance asked the Cabin, getting a cacophony of affirmation back. “Good. Then I'll tell you the rules now." Everyone gathered around the younger man, who squatted down to eye level with a toothy grin.

Shiro watched carefully and regarded Lance again. He grins like he’s a 15 year old about to share some mad secret with his friends, and it held the attention of these kids so intensely it was like he was already their friend. There’s a young fire in his eyes like he’s always finding some kind of adventure in the newest hurdle. Even though he’s just explaining rules of the cabin, he makes it seem like an exciting piece of inside information.

Lance is excellent with kids.

"First of all, I want you all to have fun. Camp is fun. But for that to be enjoyable, you have to always listen to what the counsellors tell you, right? We want you to have fun and be safe, alright? No one leaves the cabin at night. No food fights. No fights in general, just come to us and we'll take care of anyone being mean. No one will be forced to do an activity they don't want to do. No bullying. And if you ever need anything, we're always here for you." He got up again. "Got it? Awesome! Then grab your swimwear and let's head to the pond!!"

The kids got up and ran to grab their gear, and Shiro took a deep breath in. This would be good for him.

Maybe Keith doesn’t always have bad ideas.


	2. Haven't you ever heard of sunscreen?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro's first morning as a counsellor should be a breeze! 12 bubbly excited kids, a huge pond, glorious sunny morning and gorgeous sunny Lance; should be a nice morning.  
> Shiro is a little apprehensive about how curious Lance is.

Lance was a water kid and always had been. He was so glad he was always occupied with the water sports at the camp; chosen every year probably because he was the best at teaching swimming and canoeing in the whole history of this camp (and he is the only person qualified to give out swim badges). And this year he’s going to be teaching swimming with a _total babe_ of a man.

Shiro is easily the hottest guy Lance has ever met and known. Summer camp is going to be all the easier with a total Adonis, that was assured, especially easier on the eyes. Speaking of which, Lance was watching Shiro count the kids as they arrived at the pond, looking suitably worried.

The pond was closest to Blue Cabin, so they had walked for only about five minutes when they arrived. The pond itself was pretty large, it had a deep and a shallow end, with the changing rooms at the latter side. This part of the site had been a man-made addition to the camp area, from the time when it was Allura’s father that owned the place.

He smiled lopsidedly to himself and turned to Shiro.

"You okay? I hope you're okay with swimming, I won't make you get in the water if you don't want to."

"Hm?" Shiro asked as Lance spoke to him, looking up and meeting his eyes. "Oh,” He glanced down at his arm and Lance’s eyes followed there naturally, Shiro flexing the metal fingers before curling them into a fist.

“The arm is water-resistant so, I'm alright to swim." He said with a small smile.

Shiro regarded Lance once again when the other seemed to have taken his answer with no resistance. Okay, in this circumstance, it's nice to be asked about stuff like that. Lance had proven already to be very caring regarding all the kids.

But Shiro was not a kid. He was the other counsellor for the cabin, and he did feel a little strange being questioned about his ability for something like… swimming.

Still, Lance was proving to be more of a fun guy than a worrisome one.

"And I'd like to see you try to make me get in if I didn't want to." Shiro felt a streak of confidence with the heated gaze Lance gave back to him, rising to the sceptical eyebrow raise with a playful flex of his flesh arm. Lance made a face caught between disbelief and trying to remember to breathe, and Shiro laughed softly in response to the expression. He held his hands up in mock surrender.

"I'm kidding. I'm not intending to wrestle with you at any point in camp. Unless it's an activity."

A laugh burst from Lance’s throat as he looked almost fearfully at Shiro’s chest, placing his hands on his hips.

"Dude, I could already see you were ripped but like, I will _not_ wrestle you.”

Shiro had turned to round the kids up next to the changing rooms in time to totally miss Lance muttering how he would gladly let Shiro throw him in the pond with those strong arms, and then they both got the kids attention.

“Okay guys, I’m going to open up the changing blocks, so I need you to be sensible in here yeah? Change into your swimming gear and then line up outside. The faster you do it then the faster we can run into that beautiful glistening lake over there.”

Lance unlocked the doors for them and also opened the private rooms for Shiro and himself.

Shiro prayed a silent thank you, he wouldn't have to undress in front of a dozen children, nor the other man!

Lance marched the kids inside the small block and Shiro smiled at his enthusiasm before he slipped into his changing room alone. He pulled on his trunks and also pulled over a swim shirt, which isn’t very flattering on him, he knows, but it was sporty and it didn't look dumb on him. Not like being that kid in the pool with a huge heavy t-shirt on.

He thought… well, Shiro believed it would be inappropriate for him to show his injuries to little kids; the top of his arm where it connected to his skin, or the sickening angry scars across his chest and his back. He got shot twice, miraculously not in any vital organs, however, the main area of violence was over to his right side near his arm. Getting blown up wasn't very glamourous so, the swim shirt would do.

He stepped out and knocked on the door of the kids changing room, shouts and giggles pushing through the wooden door.

"Hey guys, when you're in your swimsuits come on and line up out here, okay? Last one out means I throw them in the lake." The playful little threat caused the door to immediately slide open and four very prepared kids ran out and lined up immediately, laughing. Shiro smiled and faced them, hands resting on his hips and thick brows pulled up in a warm expression.

"Good job on getting ready first guys.” He praised. “Lance, you ready yet?" Shiro called to the other side of the changing room.

"I'm outside already, big guy!!" Lance called. Lance had hurried to jump into his blue shorts, then waited at the sandbank where he dug his feet deep into the sand wriggled his toes, grateful for the wash of cool water lapping at his ankles. He was grateful for the hot weather - it wasn't too hot to sweat buckets, but it was also not too cold to refuse a swim. He loved that kind of weather.

But, for Lance, calling out had been a mistake, as a group of four little children suddenly ran at him, screaming in excitement to run into the water. He tried to steady his balance for the impact, hands up and waving.

“No- no, _no wait, wait, wait!!”_ But it was no use.

They tackled him to the ground, a splash erupting over his head with the impact. He yelled for help, but Shiro couldn’t help his burst of laughter, standing waiting by the door to the changing block with a hand over his mouth trying to muffle his giggles.

"You're a real ass-, a real doofus, you know!?” Lance yelled over to him, wrestling his way to sit up in the shallow shore, spitting water. However, the more commotion he caused, the more kids that were ready with swimsuits and armbands to jump into the water and try their hands at tackling Lance.

“Help me! Ouch- _God.."_ It took Lance several attempts and at least six more elbows to the gut until their band of kids finally climbed off him. Lance sighed in relief as he stood again, totally soaked, and looking unimpressed with his hands on his slender hips, foot-stomping in the water.  
“You wanna come over here and start the activity, or you wanna stand there and laugh at me?”

Shiro was finished with snickering in the corner finally and shut the changing room door once he made sure all the kids were out and waded into the lake’s shallow shore. Now lance could finally begin.

"Alright, who of you has a swimming badge already?" A few hands shot up in the air. "So many! Well, I suppose we'll have you guys swim around then, help the others - or you can just splash a little, and while you guys get used to doing laps, I will teach the others some basic techniques with Shiro here. But no one is allowed in the deep water yet, I'll keep an eye on you. You go in the deep water, swimming's over for you. Okay? Sorry, but it's important for safety." Lance explained.

Lance glanced over at Shiro when he had a spare moment. His eyes looked over the tight sports swim shirt he wore and wondered if that was uncomfortable in this heat.

It definitely had crossed his mind that the large scratch across the bridge of Shiro’s nose and the amputated arm wasn’t the only injuries he had.

He was glad Shiro was wearing a shirt, for the kids after all. It might be a little distracting for them otherwise. But in the pit of his chest, it made him sad, and he could tell Shiro was a little uncomfortable like this…

"Before you get to swimming," Lance then said, rushing back to shore to rummage around in his bag. "You have to put sunscreen on each other. No exceptions." He handed a large bottle to the little girl named Connie next to him, she was calm, he had noticed before. Probably reliable in future activities. The kids busied themselves and behaved well enough, which gave him time to talk to Shiro.

He wasn’t sure where he was treading with that guy, not yet, but he wanted to talk to him; maybe even get Shiro to crack open a bit and become his friend. It was best to start strong on the first day.

Shiro helped a few of the kids get some of the difficult bottles opened up and then he gave Lance his attention when he noticed he’d come over. While Shiro had to cover up in the tight swim shirt, Lance was shirtless, and his skin looked so smooth and so clear that it was difficult not to let his eyes wander the broad muscles of his shoulders and how his frame whittled away to slim hips.

"You're sure you're alright? I just want to be sure." Lance smiled at Shiro, warm and open. Shiro’s eyes snapped up to meet Lance’s. "We'll just show them breaststrokes and floating, it'll be easy. It’s mostly just keeping an eye on them having fun for the first day."

Shiro’s brows twitched down and his jaw tightened a little. Lance asking him yet again about joining in provoked a little friction this time.

"I'm 27 years old, Lance, I can swim." He stated, popping open a bottle of lotion to rub sunscreen on his exposed neck and his nose.

Shiro would leave it at that. He knows Lance is trying to look out for him, but the point was that he doesn't have to, not about activities that everyone else can do especially.

Lance, however, was shaken off-course by Shiro’s rebuff and blinked owlishly as he tried to kick his mouth back into action.

"Shiro- I didn't mean swimming! Of course you can _swim_ , basically, everyone can," His expressive brows formed a sharp line over his eyes as the two men met eyes. He seemed to be searching for words.  
"I meant...you know, your arm and scar on your nose- like if it’s from like, an accident…" His mouth opened and closed a few times like an embarrassed fish as he was shot down quickly by a deathly raise of Shiro’s brow.

"Hey is everyone got their sunscreen on? Yeah?” Shiro decided to ignore what Lance had said- or was attempting to say- and cast his attention to the kids. There’s no point getting worked up over someone with a loose mouth, he thought, Lance meant well and that’s all he should focus on. Never mind that he must think Shiro has… limitations.

It was meant well. “Alright, those that need some help come with me and Lance to the shallow end and we'll start you guys off!"

Lance sighed defeatedly and rubbed his neck. He just meant that if Shiro didn’t want to swim because of his scars or something else personal, no one would force him. Lance followed him into the water.

Shiro delighted in the cool, clear water against his feet as he waded through. It was nice to feel it, together with wet sand under his soles, yielding to his heavy steps and creating the smallest impact clouds as he treads. The water was so clear that it shone like glass, but the bite of cool water made the heat trapped under his swim shirt roll off him like the wind. It was refreshing enough that he forgot a moment that he was actually working; Lance’s voice snapping him back to reality.

The water only came up to his thigh but was deep enough for the kids to be bobbing their heads up out the water.

"Okay, people, now does anyone know how to do breaststroke?” Connie’s hand shot up quickly, bringing a shower of droplets with her arm. “Yes, you. Please tell us your name, too." Lance gestured to the small redhead girl.

"Connie! I can show how to do the stroke, here-" She slid down into the water and started to swim a small circle around the other kids, to a very varied response of captivation. Lance was ever as enthusiastic, applauding her as she went.

"Very good, Connie! Now-“ Lance started to explain a few important techniques while Shiro stood to the side to watch the demonstration. As he was, he realised something, and once Lance was back to standing he tapped his shoulder and waved the bottle of sunscreen he was holding in his hand.

"Ey, don't give me that look, I'm a natural sunscreen person - see my skin? I didn’t get this colour from any sunscreen, this is au natural; None needed." He smirked, posing almost ridiculously.

Shiro gave Lance a slanted Look although he let slip a smile and reached out to his arm, pulling him closer to him in the water and uncapping the bottle. Why does everyone think sunscreen is only about tanning?

 _"Skin cancer_ doesn't give a _darn_ about your skin colour. Now hold still." Shiro squeezed some out into his hand and pushed his much larger palm over Lance's shoulders, grinning a little mischievously at the squirming and protest under this left hand. This was just like when parents had to grip onto their squirming children at the beach, and Shiro could imagine Lance when he was younger being difficult when it came to putting on his sunscreen.

"Just because you don't burn doesn't mean you won't do yourself harm," Shiro muttered, finishing up by holding Lance’s chin and tilting his face up. He lingered a moment, caught in the glistening sparkle in Lance’s eyes before he smiled and drew a line of white on his nose.

"Oh look. You're like a lifeguard now." Shiro grinned, before throwing the bottle up the shore and sinking deeper into the shallows to help one of the kids' that was badgering for help in getting used to floating on his stomach.

Lance stood a little longer with a face like a cherry, feeling like he wanted to scream and run a mile as he watched Shiro go. One moment everything is good, he's got everything under control. Then the larger man pulls him close, so much strength in just one arm, and rubs his huge hand over Lance's shoulders…taking his face in those hands-

Lance scrubbed his nose furiously to spread the sunscreen and distracted himself by jumping into teaching the kids with no swim badges a simple forward crawl.

The kids seemed to get a hang of the swimming, albeit very slowly, apart from those racing back and forth over the shallow end with different strokes, Connie taking the lead.

\-----------------------

Shiro found that the kids gravitated heavily towards Lance.

Maybe they were put off by the scar. He would get it, to be fair. But he had been helping two of the smaller kids; Milo and Tyran, to help them out and didn’t feel too much like a kid on the first day of school being left out of all the games.

“Alright, guys!” Lance called, having stopped to look at his watch, drawing the attention of almost everyone. “Dry yourselves and get back to the changing rooms, it’s switch-over time!”

A chorus of complaints sounded, even as Shiro stood up to wade back into shore.

After some small encouragement, they all got out of the water, Shiro and Lance poking their heads in the changing room every so often to make sure that they all dried off and put on their normal gear again.

Shiro had only a small moment of time to think about how the hour of his first water activities had gone.

He's seen a fluid body swimming the way Lance had before, but he's not sure if it was from real life or from mermaid movie. He looked good. Without admitting to himself that he was looking in the first place.

That's when Lance's walkie-talkie beeped, followed by Keith's voice crackling through.

_"Lance, I'm on my way with the Red Cabin's kids, we need a minute or two longer, just some first aid, over."_

Lance hopped over a large sitting log on the shore to pick up his stashed walkie-talkie from the utility belt, holding the button down.

"It's all good, Mullet, we'll wait for you, over."

Shiro imagined Keith rolling his eyes to that and grinned at the ground in the attempt to hide his amusement at it. He helped Lance prep the kids for the switch over, getting their hair dried off and swim bags on their shoulders. Lance seemed glad to have an extra pair of hands, the ease at which he looked up to find the other kids and then sigh and turn away knowing they had been tended to by Shiro already. A weight from his mind.

Even if the kids needed time to warm up to him- he was rather tall and intimidating in size - Shiro was soft and kind at heart.

Or well, he always used to be. That playful part of him got kind of… lost, over these hard few years. And Keith struggled to get it out of him since he wasn’t exactly the class clown himself. But kids were Shiro’s weakness; they were always playful and up for fun, they viewed the world like it was new and exciting, he’d never met a kid that wasn’t excited by a huge tree to climb or lake or pool to splash someone in-

 _‘Oh,’_ Shiro thought all of a sudden, stopping in his tracks. He smiled gently to himself. _‘Keith, you are smarter than I give you credit for.’_

Someone whistled loudly, everyone’s heads turned to the source of noise immediately. Shiro watched curiously as Lance chuckled, put his fingers in his mouth and whistled back, high and shrill. Quickly after that Keith popped up into view from over the top of the gravel path, his kids in a row behind him.

Shiro’s eyebrow quirked and he looked between Lance and Keith. How had they managed that? He wasn't sure if that's just the etiquette they have or if that's something special between the two of them.

Never mind that, he was impressed by how _good_ Keith was with kids. That was his baby brother getting all those kids to behave!

When Keith was a teenager he wouldn’t even think of looking after kids or babysitting, it was the most repulsive thing Shiro could suggest when he was looking for part-time work.

 _‘They’re disobedient, sticky, needy and never let you have any time to yourself!'_ He would complain, deeply aggravated and folding his arms so tight he looked like he was swaddling himself.

 _‘No, that was just you.’_ Shiro would reply before ruffling his thick head of hair.

Actually, Keith talked a lot about Lance more than the kids at the camp so how could he have known? Even if it was to complain about him, Keith still does talk about him a hell of a lot. Shiro didn't like to be presumptuous though, even if it was a little suspect that Lance was actually a very nice guy and half Keith’s complaints didn’t match up, he dropped the thought as his brother appeared, giving him a smile and wave.

Lance turned to their own cabin with a satisfied smile.

"There's Keith, so we have to say goodbye now." Shiro noticed a tug on his prosthetic and whipped his head around quickly, scanning around him, then dropped his eyes down only to find Milo firmly grasping the hand and looking shyly at the ground.

Shiro’s eyes softened and eyebrows pinched at the distress in his body language.

"Hey, Milo... what's up?" He asked. Milo didn't answer him however, and just shook his head of long, thick dark hair, shying away from Keith and coming closer into Shiro's arm. Shiro lowered himself to Milo's level and smiled kindly at the young boy, searching his expression.

"You know, Keith is my little brother.” Large, dark eyes looked up at his face from under thick eyebrows.  
“I grew up with him a long time ago when I was a kid and he was your age. He's really cool if you give him a chance and he'll look after you if you're worried at all,” He said gently. Milo brought his head up but still, he seemed a bit reluctant. A stroke of mischief played through Shiro’s mind.  
“And if he doesn't, you can say you'll tell on him to me, okay?"

The rest of the kids were starting to get formed up on lines to swap with Keith and Milo watched them for a bit. Wordlessly he nodded and let go, going up to join at the back of the line.

Keith had reached them now at the pool and turned to his very well behaved group.

"Alright guys you're gonna listen to Shiro and Lance for this hour, and they'll be reporting back to me about your behaviour so I'll be less than unimpressed with you if I hear you drowned someone," Shiro smirked, shaking his head at Keith's dry sense of humour.

Lance went up to Keith to greet him and tease him a bit, poking his sides as they swapped over their cabins.

The first year that Keith had arrived at Camp Voltron as a counsellor, both of them started out hating each other. Lance had ‘harmlessly pranked’ Keith a lot and in return for testing the limits of Keith’s fury, he beat Lance up.

Lance had a black eye for two weeks and Allura was so mad, he'll never forget, the both of them were nearly fired, and she made sure in telling them that if a child had seen them fight, they _would have_ been fired.

However, that didn’t happen, and they were forced to clean the main cabin together as punishment. A… _sort of_ fight broke out but in the end, they were on the floor up laughing until dinner at how stupid the whole thing had been. Ever since they had worked up from neutral ground, bickering to banter and now, Lance would reluctantly describe them ‘friendly’.

It was nice.

\------------------

Keith's group was really well behaved. They went into the changing room and came out quickly again in a row.

Lance had launched into the same speech he had earlier to Keith’s much smaller group; six kids and four of them already had a badge. Everybody jumped into the water and followed their instructions easily.

Shiro shifted up to Lance in the water again and watched the experienced kids’ race.

"So you and Keith did that whistle to each other... do we have to do that when we swap groups all the time?" He asked.

"Huh? Oh, no." Lance laughed nervously, squatting down so a small blonde girl could step on his thigh, then he threw her back into the water to her screams and delighted laugh.  
"It's a Keith 'n' Lance thing. We started doing it two years ago."

The next kid came up to Lance with grabby hands, wanting to be thrown.

"We used to make a contest out of literally anything. Handstands, cleaning, climbing, even whistling. But, ah… Allura knocked some sense into us.” He cleared his throat. Shiro was inclined to think that was a little more literal than Lance was letting onto.

“We both kind of grew more mature as we came back each year until the whistling just became a thing to greet each other." Lance chuckled, faint memories playing behind the screen of his blue eyes.

Shiro pursed his lips and considered that as he watched another child cannonball off Lance’s leg. There seemed to be something there between those two, between their little signals and that made Shiro feel…

Disappointed?

Shiro shook the thought from his head and found himself distracted, idly picking up a small girl who asked to be thrown as the others were and accidentally launched the kid into the air with her scream making Shiro realise exactly what he had just done.

He rushed out in the water to find her, a little panicked, until her blonde head popped up from the surface with a huge grin.

"Again!!"

\------------------

After a while, they had to dry up and change clothes for lunch.

Shiro got changed back into his gear and noticed Lance covering up the back of his neck, and with a proud little smile realised why, seeing the redness spread across the back of his neck and his back where he had refused the sunscreen to go earlier.

"So much for a natural sunscreen huh?” He asked, poking a finger into the nape of his neck and watching with amusement as the skin turned white under the pressure.  
“Should have put some down you back too."

"Shut up...it's just...the way the sun is positioned right now, it's just- you know." Lance frowned and blushed a little, rubbing some aftersun cream on his neck. It burned, so of course, he winced.  
"A-Anyways, let's go."

The group too off over the gravel path and walked over to the main cabin. They entered the hall, Keith and Hunk’s cabin were already there, and Lance held up his hand.

"Red cabin sits at what table?" He asked the group. They looked up at him a little dumbly. “With your cabin leader, guys. Alright, go and shoo, it’s chow time!”

They giggled and ran off to Keith, who was already sitting at the table with a tray of lunch, and who quickly dismissed them to line up at the tray stations and get their hard-earned lunch from Hunk.

Lance went to Blue cabin's table and sat down there, Shiro hovering next to him. The kids were still with Pidge at tree planting, but they'd arrive pretty soon, in the meantime they should wait for them.

Shiro looked out longingly at his brother's table, strained by duty to sit at his own table and wait for the kids of his cabin, but he had to admit.. it was a bit stressful without Keith there. Good, for the first half of the day, really it had been.

Shiro turned to Lance, unintentionally showing an expression of an anxious puppy more than an adult.

"Do the um.. the counsellors not sit together?" He asked. He had banked on being able to speak with Keith and keep him up to date with how he's doing. They had agreed on it.

Keith was also the only person here with extensive knowledge on what Shiro had been and is currently going through. So, if push came to shove and he really needed something, he would rather ask his brother.

In short, Shiro had thought extensively about this whole summer job and the slightest change to his precautions was slightly stressing him out.

Lance blinked several times, and Shiro pinkened at the way the other man looked quite insulted.

"You want to sit with Keith?" He stated, then quickly recovered.  
"I mean- I don't mind at all, you can sit with him. I can handle the kids fine - I just dunno if Allura will nag you about it. If she comes up to you, tell her it was my idea." Lance then gave him a soft smile.

Shiro smiled gently in return, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. "Thank you Lance, it means a lot. I'll try not to get you in trouble." He winked, and then Lance changed his tone and started to shoo Shiro off to go and sit at Keith’s table.

Keith arched a questioning eyebrow at Shiro as he sat, but he didn't comment much, just allowed him to sit down beside him.

"You doing good?" He asked sideways as Keith spooned another mouthful of pasta into his mouth.

Shiro sighed and nodded in answer.

"Yeah. We did swimming."

"I saw. How's the swim shirt working out?" Keith turned an eye on his brother then, give away concern etching into his usual hardened brow. Shiro had to sigh again and shrug.

"Uncomfortable, but it works out. And it's nice to swim anyway." They both stayed quiet for a moment before Keith bumped his shoulder with Shiro’s; exchanging a smile together before Shiro ruffled Keith's hair.

“Stop! You only came over here to annoy me, huh?”

At that point Pidge entered the hall with the twelve kids of the Blue Cabin, laughing and yelling as they ran to Lance, hungry like a pack of wolves. Lance laughed whole-heartedly at the impact and Shiro couldn’t help a huff of a laugh as he watched.

Keith watched his silent brother for a few seconds before turning back to his lunch.

"Bummer about the shirt. But it doesn't look stupid at least." The conversation flowed on and Shiro felt a little at ease after a talk to his little brother.

“Are you going to abandon him to round up twelve kids and make sure they all eat by himself?” Keith asked, washing his lunch down with a large cup of juice.

Shiro’s brow pinched and he watched Lance filling everyone's cups and reminding them not to throw food.

He looked down at the table for a second. No, he can’t really. He was here to lighten the load for the rest of the counsellors. Shiro turned and smiled at Keith.

“No. Thanks, Keith, for the talk.” Keith shrugged, but as Shiro got up from the table Keith grabbed onto his arm, a renewed concern in his eyes.

“Remember you have to ask Lance about a locker for your medication, okay?”

Shiro flinched a bit, not really wanting to talk about that out in the main hall.

“Yeah, yeah, I will.”

\----------------------

"The whole first week will be us teaching all cabins proper swimming,” Lance explained, handing Shiro a timetable after they had all pushed their empty trays away.

Shiro had to admit, Hunk was something of a God at cooking, even if it was in bulk; it all tasted so good, and he didn’t dare leave any of it.

“I'm qualified to give out swimming badges. It's important for the other sports we'll be doing. Diving, contest swimming, water ski, and my favourite, canoeing. It's so much fun, trust me! And the pond is bigger than it looks. You'll love it, I promise.”

Shiro found that Lance spoke at a mile an hour, and he also found he didn’t have the heart to shush or stop him.

When Lance spoke, he put his whole body into it. He composed tone with his hands and directed assertive expression with the pull and lax of his torso. It was kind of mesmerizing, actually.

"We have a short break now for half an hour, but I'll go to the playground with the kids since there’s a kind of crossover point when the other groups are busy. We have climbing walls and I like to offer the opportunity to the kids. After all, climbing is fun, you see?" He grabbed his stuff and stood up.

"Everyone done? Alright, let's go!" He smiled at Shiro. "You wanna come with us or stick with Keith?"

Shiro stood up and downed his juice, and stepped out from the benches to follow after Lance.

“I’m good to follow you.”

On the way, he passed Hunk and stopped with a smile.

"Are you our chef Hunk? You're an amazing cook." Shiro complimented before stepping out the cabin with Milo attached to his side.

Hunk stuttered a little and called out after Shiro a spill of thank you’s, which he smiled at politely. Shiro nudged Lance as they walked to the play area.

"I used to do rock climbing for fun. Scaled a few real rock faces too, but that was a little much so I mostly stuck to rock walls."

"Oh?" Lance grinned at him ear to ear, like a smug cat. "In that case...how about a race? Who's fastest?"

Shiro felt a playful part of him which had been slowly rekindling positively roar.

There were many different things to climb at this little woodchip play area; several swings and slides, a large wooden climbing ship with monkey bars and a fire pole. It was a kid’s dream, really. Lance whistled contently, leading the way.

"Alright, Blue cabin sound off." He checked all the twelve kids being here and then leaned against the large climbing wall.  
"You can do anything on this playground, but safely. No fighting, no shoving, no pushing. Anyone who wants to climb the wall comes with us two and we can get you kitted up in your gear." He pointed to the cement wall behind him, about 20 meters tall, colourful buttons attached to it to climb with thick ropes at the top for safety.

"Also, you'll be wearing helmets for it. No nagging- We'll wear 'em too since we don't want our heads to pop open, right?" He smiled at the groans. "Alright, shoo and play!" He waved them away.

Three kids stayed with Shiro and Lance at the climbing wall, eager and giddy. Milo had very firmly placed himself behind himself and couldn't help but smile. A least one kid really liked him.

The counsellors kneeled down to help put on the bright orange helmets and ropes around Connie, Milo, and Hadid to the wall. He put on Milo's helmet carefully and made sure his short dark hair was tucked into it.

"Not too tight?" He asked,

"No," Milo said in a little voice and smiled.

Ugh Shiro's two seconds away from adopting this child.

And normally Shiro would be fine getting his gear on but this gear had a lot of...safety. And he also hadn't gotten on a climbing wall for _fun_ for five years. It normally included mud and an angry drill sergeant.

And it was evident he was not so well versed in getting himself in the safety gear, Lance huffed a laugh and came over to Shiro and bat his hands away to start fixing it. Shiro flustered a little, but let Lance fumble around his belt and straps and hovered his hands well above Lance's shoulders, going a bit pink as he watched Lance's skilled hands strap him into the harness.

"Um, thanks... normally I'm a lot handier but I uh- I’m a little thick fingered." Shiro smiled bashfully. Lance chuckled and snatched Shiro’s nervous gaze with his own.

"Dude, don't worry. When I put it on the first time, I knotted it up so badly that Allura hat to cut the straps and free me. 'S totally cool."

Shiro was still blushing however, and once he realised he was all tied up, he was also aware of Lance’s hand hovering cautiously over his prosthetic where it connected with his shoulder. Shiro stepped away and cleared his throat.

"So, let's have that race?"

Lance looked up at Shiro and he could swear he saw a nervous excuse die in his throat.

Lance turned to the kids and explained to them how to use their safety harness, checking them over one last time before instructing them to hold onto the wall.

Shiro positioned himself next to Lance and put his hands on the first few multicoloured grips, before passing a look at Lance. Despite his previous awkward encounter, Lance was already looking at Shiro with a renewed fire in his eyes, and a smug grin splitting his face.

“I hold the record for the fastest time up the wall, you know.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow and levelled back a challenging smile, tilting his head down.

“Nice to know I have something else to beat.”

Lance counted down from 3 before he pressed start on his timer and they all hopped onto the wall. Shiro grabbed the rocks and practically threw himself up, finding muscle memory from years of climbing taking over. He didn’t even look down; just grinning as the adrenaline pumped through his system and with a last tug he hauled himself on top of the platform at the top of the wall.

Shiro looked down between his knees and smiled, dare he say smugly, at Lance, and leaned his elbows on his legs.

“How fast was your previous record?”

Lance had stopped for a second it seemed, holding onto the rocks with his mouth fallen open. Shiro felt a ripple of pride, having successfully shown off his skill. He couldn’t help his giddiness and giggle at Lance’s features blown wide with astonishment.

"Also kids please don't try and do that," Shiro called down to the three still climbing the wall slowly. He could hear a sudden chatter over the rush of his heartbeat and looked up at the rest of the playground, seeing a few kids pointing up at them. Had they seen that?

As Shiro looked back down he saw Lance had snapped out of it and had started to climb again, stepping from rock to rock nimbly. Oh yeah, Shiro had definitely broken the record. Quickly Shiro squashed his blatant pride and cleared his throat, reminding himself it was far more gratifying to be humble than to lord over Lance.

Lance crawled over the top and sat next to Shiro, straddling the smooth edge of the wall, looking less butthurt than Shiro had thought.

"Jesus, what are you, a mountain lion? A bear? Squirrel? That was insane! I don’t know if I should feel threatened by you or turned on."

Shiro nearly choked on his own air.

The kids were still climbing, far slower than the two men; Shiro noticed them staring. The others of Blue cabin as well. But it wasn't scared staring, more alike to Lance, in amazement and giddiness.

Lance grinned, panting still. "Dude you're awesome. I mean it. That looked rad. How’d you learn to do that?"

Shiro had barely broken any sweat at all, and he laughed louder and broader the more Lance joked with him, rubbing under his hairline awkwardly.

"Thanks... I told you I used to climb. I only know how to do this because we use them in training, but I've only ever had to throw myself up real wreckages about twice." Shiro looked down at the kids, watching them climb stone by stone. He called down to them encouragements, that they were doing great- ‘only a little way left to go!’

Lance’s brow crinkled and he looked at Shiro as if he were a total mystery.

“You make me want to ask you so many questions.”

Shiro was silent for a moment, contemplating that statement. So, Lance is holding himself back, huh? It was considerate of him not to bombard Shiro with his enquiries. He’s not sure he could take another question about his arm or even another goddamn ‘What happened to you?’

Lance didn’t seem like that. Not nosy, at least, just curious. Just wanting to understand. Shiro caught his lip between his teeth and bit down slowly, before releasing his lip and facing Lance. He was still being watched.

“I don’t think you want me to answer them, Lance.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exciting developments; Shiro is heavily guarding his past but Lance seems to have other ideas! Still, I think they're warming up to each other, don't you?  
> Next chapter! It's the first night spent at the camp... naturally, Shiro is worried about how he will cope when his usual privacy is stripped away.


	3. What's the scariest thing you've ever seen?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first full day comes to a happy, slightly exhausting end. Shiro and Lance come closer and closer together, but while Shiro feels more comfortable around his new counsellor partner, Lance only grows more curious about his...
> 
> Sorry for the delayed update guys! Had a lot of work commitments and my friend @yawakawaiarts was on holiday so the first art piece was done by yours truly!

"Four-hour sunsets?” Shiro’s brows quirked up and his lips pulled down in a disbelieving pout. Lance scoffed indignantly at Shiro’s blatant scepticism as he swung back and forth on the low swing set.

“Yes, I’m not lying!! For real they start at about now and they last for four hours out here! You can watch them on the hill after dinner!”

Shiro huffed out a laugh at his knees as Lance’s voice hitched up a few octaves, his legs pushing him back and forth gently on his own swing.

“Well, that really does sound kind of magical." Shiro hummed, "And you gather around the campfires after dinner every night to watch them?” Shiro asked, looking over at Lance.

He noticed a few Blue cabin kids were bored of the playground now and had taken to laying on the grass outside the boundary, with kids who had joined from Yellow cabin chatting away about their activities and what they liked and who they liked. It seemed the playground was an unofficial meeting area to relax before lunch was ready.

“No, once a week. We teach stuff like survival skills- how to strike a fire or how to make your own water carrier, how to cook things over an open flame.” Lance explained, swinging idly but also keeping one eye on the two sets of kids. Lance seemed to have this arrangement with Hunk, as he was the chef for just under 40 people, that Lance would take care of his kids while he gets things going in the kitchen.

"We have all kinds of things you could take for a campfire, but Hunk makes bread with the kids a day before which they toast. It's so much fun to do a huge pile of dough with dozens of kids who are covered in flour, and then see the crazy things the kids put on top of it..”

Shiro chuckled and shook his head, casting his eyes to the sky. It was starting to become golden now, the blue not so crystal as before, the white puffy clouds a sweet and pale peach as they rolled overhead. He’s still very doubtful of a four-hour sunset.

Shiro’s eyebrows furrowed.

"Why bread though? In my day it used to be marshmallows or at least a sausage at a fire. But that's camping when I was about five, decades ago." 

Lance laughed at that and stopped swinging, looking at Shiro with his own scepticism now.

“Alright, grandpa, sorry it’s not the good ol’ days.”

Shiro breathed in through his teeth and braced his hands on his knees, making Lance laugh again at Shiro’s pretend offence. Shiro reached over and punched Lance lightly on his shoulder.

“Ow!” Lance cried out and rubbed his shoulder, it was apparent Shiro had hit a bit harder than he intended. “Jesus, watch it with your muscles! Don’t think just because you’re a pretty face that I’ll let you push me around.”

Shiro pressed his lips together and tried not to look so bashful. It was unbecoming of a grown man like himself to melt like a teenager at simple flattery. And Lance was a flatterer, that’s for sure.

But he’s been doing it all day. It must just be how Lance is, you know? A natural flirt, a way of being friendly.

Lance took his walkie-talkie out and pressed 4.

"Keith, your brother is torturing me with his awfully perfect set of teeth. Over."

Shiro’s surprised glance was met with Lance’s brilliant grin, and despite his shock at the statement he quickly grinned in return, his ears turning red. His walkie-talkie buzzed then.

_‘In case Shiro is with you right now, tell him that I agree that his teeth are shitty perfect, and I hate it too. Over.’_

They both erupted into giggles and Shiro covered his mouth. How like Keith…

Shiro whipped out his own walkie talkie and decided to call in to his loyal and defending brother himself.

"I get these ‘shitty perfect’ teeth from actually going to my dentist, Keith."

_‘Well that’s tough shit for me, I'm not voluntarily going to sit in a torture chair with some man in a mask poking metal spikes into my open mouth!’_

Shiro snorted and laughed, his shoulders shaking with the force of it.

Keith isn't trusting of anyone to go poking at him and never has been as far as Shiro had known him, you can imagine the turmoil of making him sit down to get his shots.

"Alright, 's almost time for dinner.” Lance interrupted their giggle-fest to finally return to their duties.  
"Let's collect the hoard and get back to the cabin." Shiro was almost embarrassed he had let himself forget his duty again. Time flies when you don't have much to do it seems. Lance jumped off the swing and Shiro followed at the same time, both of them walking through the playground to call the kids in for dinner.

\------------------------

Hunk really was an absolutely excellent chef, that or the kids had just been tired out from their first full day, as Shiro noticed the hall was nearly silent except for the cacophony of cutlery scraping across plastic trays.

At least until they had slowed down from inhaling the first half of their veggie lasagne.

“So, you gonna run for the hills while we sleep tonight?” Lance asked after also demolishing half his meal. Even though it’s not intensive swimming, walking through resistance isn’t easy going when you do it for four hours of the day.

Shiro gave Lance a reprimanding frown for that one. It seems he’s not been subtle then showing how apprehensive Shiro is about this whole away trip.

At one end of the spectrum, Shiro wants to be really mad at Keith. He wants to reject this whole thing; this entire notion that being out here completely separate from his comfort zone and far away from his destructive habits would in some perfect plotline way heal his trauma and send him packing off back home a changed man.

And… then his rationality takes the wheel again.

He knows that is not Keith’s intentions. He knows Keith wants to help him and that being here is honestly a sound, potentially really fun experience to help him with _some things_ that Shiro was struggling to overcome.

His confidence and positive view of his appearance had been shattered. He didn’t want to even go outside to get his groceries because it made him nauseous feeling every pair of eyes in the building on his skin. And, he went very quickly to not wanting anyone coming around to visit him and see him the way he was. Healing gashes to scars, hiding in huge clothes and black, refusing house calls despite his friends on the phone to him desperate just to welcome him back home.

Shiro never had the welcome back home party they had all talked about.

“Hey,” Lance’s voice sliced through Shiro’s thoughts and he jumped out of it as if he had been shocked with electricity.

He turned to see Lance close to him, eyes swimming in concern, a hand hovering over his shoulder.

“I’m sorry man, it was a joke, I swear! I don’t think you’re the type to give up at the first hurdle.”

Shiro’s hardened brow smoothed out and he cracked a smile, noticing immediately how all of Lance’s tension dissipated at seeing it.

“No, I’m not the type to give up. I’ll be sticking around.” Shiro promised, trying his hardest to really believe it.

Lance smiled back and his eyes lingered softly on Shiro, enough that he was being caught in Lance’s orbit so he struggled to look away.

It’s not Lance’s eyes that captures so much of Shiro’s attention either, he’s realised. It’s that toothy, bubbly smile, the confidence and humour that comes with it. It’s the ease with which it forms.

"Lance, um-” Shiro broke orbit and his eyes crashed down to the table-top.   
“I've brought medicine with me that I _need_ to take, and I'm sure that it's not safe to keep it in reach of these kids so, is there a locker or something in the cabin I can use?" Shiro asked, pushing himself to look back up at Lance.

Shiro wished he wasn’t so awkward asking about these things, but he’s not used to addressing it to other people. And he can’t shut up and stash the medicine in his bag, because Shiro would never forgive himself if he came back to the cabin to find some kid face down on the floor because they thought Shiro had some kind of headache pill or painkiller.

Lance didn’t even blink, just tucked back into his food.

“Yeah man, we have two small lockers around the side of the bathroom. You can put your phone in there too if you like. Mine's in my Jeep cuz it’s a really cheap phone and I _never_ make it onto the Wi-Fi.

Shiro gathered up his composure enough to not visibly release his breath. A gentle smile pushed its way to the surface; this put Shiro at ease about a number of things. It was good to know there was somewhere safe for those meds, and good to know he was actually okay to talk to Lance without an onslaught of interrogation.

But Shiro noticed Lance looking at him from the corner of his eye, and the tension in his posture was indicative of Lance having to suppress his urge to ask Shiro what the meds were for. However, Shiro wasn’t aware just how much Lance was busting at the seams to bite his tongue; how frustrating Lance was finding it to try and walk towards Shiro and hit this thick invisible wall.

All these questions: What happened to your arm? Why are you afraid to show yourself? Why were you hurt? How can I help?

Lance was biting down hard. He could see the scenario playing out if he asked everything he wanted to and let me tell you, it did _not_ end in a happy end and a kumbaya.

Lance just… didn’t want Shiro feeling uncomfortable around him. He hated that. Nothing set Lance off into sleepless nights more than knowing someone didn’t like being around him, talk about a knife to the gut!

Lance changed subjects quickly, stifled by the silence.

“Okay, come on, get a move on Shiro! You want to see the sunset, don’t you? The sooner you do, the sooner we can go to the hillside and watch. I think you'd love it."

Lance put his plate up to his chest and started to hoover down his food again, and when a few kids at the table copied the action (to varying degrees of success), and Lance ended up eating too fast and coughing, it made a laugh burst out from Shiro’s stomach.

“Okay- okay! Don’t choke! You know you’ve been going a hundred miles an hour _all day_ don’t you stop rushing?” However, he did start eating again just to please Lance.  
“Rushing to finish dinner and rushing to watch the sunset- then rushing to start this slumber party you’re alluding to.”

Shiro gave Lance a quick slap to his back and his coughing fit came to an end.

“Never did like those kinds of things." He muttered as he ignored Lance gulping down water in favour of finishing his dinner.

“That's because Shiro was a stick in the mud child and anything that disrupted him past his 9 o’clock bedtime was out of his natural order,”

Shiro twisted around to see Keith standing behind them looking down at them both, his empty tray held in one hand and free hand on his hip. Keith raised an eyebrow when Shiro grumbled at him.

As much as he dreaded sleep, he still needed it as a basic requirement for keeping him polite...

“Tight-ass.” Keith finished, and Shiro shushed him harshly.

“ _Kids,_ Keith, come on they can hear you.”

“There are worse words than ass but since you insist. Tight-butt.”

An eruption of giggles only added to Shiro’s blush. Lance bit his lip.

"I'll promise to keep 'em quiet. Also, we have headphones if it does get too loud for you.”

Keith wrinkled his nose and hummed as he turned away and headed to put his tray away. Only Shiro knew his many different kinds of grunts and hums and knew that was a hum of ‘well that’s out of character’. So, Lance is being especially accommodating and kind.

Once Keith had stopped teasing him, Shiro could turn around back to Lance and nodded his head.

"I'll be fine. Just don't hit me in the face with a pillow, and I won't drag you from your bunk in the middle of the night. Deal?" He smirked playfully, leaning his elbows on the table surface.

"Dude I won't mess with you in your sleep, I don't want to get thrown through the room." Lance snickered.  
“Anyways, I'll make sure no one interrupts sleeping beauty Shiro's sleep."

Lance picked up his and Shiro’s tray and hopped up to his feet.

"Alright guys we have thirty more minutes until curfew so let’s get out and soak up the freedom while we can, morning starts at 6.45 AM."

\------------------------

Shiro had his gaze fixed on the soft clouds spreading out into the horizon in front of him, and the endless span of softly swaying treetops stained black with shadow. His dark eyes were lit with the pinks and oranges and pale reds of the sky, his lips parted slightly in the wonder of it all.

It wasn’t a four-hour sunset.

But it was unendingly beautiful.

Behind him, Lance hung back, caught up in the view, though his eyes were pointedly avoiding the sky above him. He had his lip caught between his pearly teeth and was biting down his worries, brow sloping down as he watched Shiro gaze into the distance.

Keith walked away from his cabin after a while, once they were settled with sitting on the grassy hill to watch the sky and unwind and stood next to Lance sharing in his concern.

"I think he really likes you," he muttered,

Lance broke out of his headspace and turned to Keith with an eyebrow raised.

“You think? I hope so, I’ve been laying my charms on thick.” Lance joked, trying to pull himself up to his usual optimism. Keith took that and rolled his eyes, but there was the smallest pull of the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, I noticed.” He paused then and pursed his lips, kicking the grass as he built up to say something else.  
"Has he um.. said anything to you about his situation?" Lance could tell Keith was trying to tread very lightly here.

Lance pressed his lips together and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Not... exactly. I can only assume but I don't want to bug him with questions." Lance scratched his neck, breathing in deeply.  
"He talks to me when he feels like it; when he wants to. After all, we've only ever met today, he’s probably not the type to get chatty right away, right?"

Keith shook his head and cracked a smile.

“Nah, he’s no social butterfly, not like you. It’s good you guys got paired up though because you’re the best person for settling him into this place. Well, he knows Pidge but they haven’t met up since Pidge was like 17.”

A light breeze caressed Lance’s face and lightly ruffled the Cuban man’s hair, which Lance quickly reached up to correct, stealing a glance back to Shiro as he did.

He was gorgeous… Scarred, yes, but it made him beautiful in its own way. Those big dopey eyes and thick eyebrows made him look kind of like a puppy. And that cool tuft of white hair that fell in the middle of his face looked so cool, Lance wondered if he dyed it that way.

Plus the gentle giant routine is always kinda hot. Lance cleared his throat.

“Still, I thought we were getting along better than this, Mullet.” He sighed, total resignation in his voice as he looked away down the hill with a forlorn expression.

“Huh?” Keith questioned; arms folded as he frowned over at Lance. “What is that meant to mean?”

Lance rolled on the balls of his feet and shrugged dramatically.

“Oh, nothing, only a passing comment on how I had no idea you had a brother until today.” Keith rolled his eyes to the back of his skull, scoffing at Lance’s antics.

“Whatever, it’s just never come up in conversation before.”

“It has _SO_ come up in conversation before!!”

“Well I can’t have you knowing too much about my personal life.”

“Look normal people just block out a weird hobby or embarrassing memory, your entire _brother_ is just a bare essential you could have told us and we wouldn’t have cared.”

Keith pouted a bit and kicked the grass again.

“That’s fair... I don’t know, people react to the foster family-adoption thing differently. Some people are just weird about it. They obsess over how similar Shiro and I look and it always just reminds me we aren’t actually blood-related.”

Lance noted that Keith seemed to have a trace of bitterness in his mouth when talking about family. It must have been a rough upbringing. Still, Lance could sense that there needed to be a little lift in this mood.

“Nah you guys don’t look related at all, unless Shiro was given all the gifts and you were hit with an ugly stick.”

Keith growled at the insult and grabbed Lance by his shoulders, pulling him against his chest and rubbing his head with his fist.

“I’ll show _you_ hit with an ugly stick!”

"Okay okay, I'm sorry _-stop!!"_ Lance pulled and pulled to get himself free from Keith’s death grip, hands flat against his chest as he wiggled to get his head out. Keith laughed victoriously when he got Lance into a loose headlock, spinning them around.

Keith saw something that made him let go immediately and sent Lance hurtling backwards. He almost tripped, but caught himself last second on a solid object; some kind of… wall?

Lance tilted his head back and looked up at what he had just crashed into.

"Keith, didn't we teach you to play nice with other kids when you were 12?" Shiro had laughter in his smile as look down at Lance in turn, his soft chocolate eyes flickering with mirth.

Lance almost _squeaked_ as he leapt away from Shiro, attempting to gather all his clumsy limbs up into a ball in embarrassment for crashing into Shiro’s chest for the _second time in a day._

Keith huffed indignantly and tightened his arms over his chest.

"No, you _tried_ to, keyword ‘try’." Lance finally got his mouth to work and blushed fiercely at being stuck between the two brothers.

"Sorry!! We just gotta stop meeting like this… But your brother keeps torturing me."

Shiro nodded and still held onto Lance and gently tucked him behind his back, crossing his arms in front of his large chest.

"If you want the Blue counsellor, you have to go through me first." His threat was only meant to be for pretend, indulging in this playful scenario.

Lance was blushing standing behind the mass of Shiro, his whole body must have been out of sight behind him. This was doing things to the boy's head he wasn't proud of.

Yes, Shiro was handsome, but that's not all; He was dorky, he was kind and warm-hearted and disciplined. He cared and listened and did it really _hurt_ anyone that Lance was indulging in his attention? After pandering for a crumb of affection from Allura and to hold her interest every year he came back here, and getting nothing back, here’s this new and fantastic and majorly hot guy who wants to listen to him. Lance had a burning urge to get to know his beautiful mind more.

But there’s this… this annoying itch in his brain when he looks at Shiro for too long. Like he’s trying to peer into him and find the answer to the question ‘Do I know you?’.

But he’s never met Shiro! He’s never had the opportunity to meet him before: He didn’t know Keith _had_ a brother before this year! Maybe through Pidge, somehow, he had turned up at an event after they were 17 and was there only for a second.

Speaking of Pidge, they disrupted Shiro and Keith’s playful standoff when they tugged on Lance's T-Shirt sleeve.

"Dude, I need your help.” They said with an exasperated expression, rubbing under the huge full moon glasses they insisted on wearing.  
“One of my Latinx kids is crying and my Spanish isn't good enough to figure out what’s up with her, Estella is her name, she’s the one with the stripy orange shirt. Please, come be my google translate?”

Lance sighed, poking Shiro's side to get the man's attention.

"I'll be back soon," He then followed Pidge away from the brothers, up to Green cabin where Estella, one of the younger kids, was in floods of tears. She was stood up watching the two counsellors come closer, tears staining her tanned cheeks, long sleek brown hair sticking to her face from the breeze. Lance uttered a gentle greeting, then kneeled down and listened to her crying words.

_“What’s wrong, Estella? Tell me about it.”_

_“I-I-I lost her!”_ She sobbed. Lance frowned and placed his hands on his knees.

 _“Who did you lose? Breathe, come on calm down and me and Pidge can help.”_ Estella wiped her hands down her tear stricken face and pushed her hair out her face.

 _“My Bunny Canela! She won’t let me find her!”_ Estella took in big gulping breaths as Lance shushed her furious tears. This is not the first tantrum over a stuffed toy, and it will not be the last. Lance spun around to Pidge on his ankles.

“Okay situation is that we have a lost bunny toy called Canela, ringing bells Pidge?”

Large hazel eyes rolled up and their brow furrowed as they scanned back through the days’ worth of memory. They made a eureka face and clicked their fingers.

“Yes- yes, Estella, I think your toy is in the greenhouse where we put the bags in the peg room?”

Lance swivelled around to the little girl with a bright smile.

"They said Canela is probably in the greenhouse. Listen to them and Pidge will take you to her, okay?" The little girl had calmed down enough where she wasn’t in hysterics and nodded along with what Pidge was saying, and once they were back on the same page she took Pidge’s hand as they lead her up the hill.

“Thanks, man! I’ll be right back please look after my kids I’ll turn you into compost if you don’t!" Pidge called as they hurried up back to the greenhouse.

Lance waved after them and sighed in satisfaction. "You're welcome, Pidgotto."

\-------------------

The night was upon them by the time Lance and Shiro made it back to the Blue cabin, the sky a dusty dark blue as the sun left only the memory of light in the sky. In the East, there were the beginnings of stars peeking out.

Lance let one of the younger boys down from his shoulders so he could hop up the steps and unlock the cabin. There was still a hum of excitement in the group even as they loaded into the cabin. Shiro lead Milo to the cabin as well, letting him grab onto his shirt and tail him back indoors.

“Everyone had a good first day?” Lance asked as the kids ran for the beds.

The cabin seemed much different in the dark. The LED lighting was harsh on old wood, making the place seem bleached and shadowed at the same time, shadows casting in the corners and the trees outside the windows seemed far too close.

Shiro can see why some of the kids had become hesitant about going in, standing with hands near their tummies as they looked around them.

"Alright, everyone, listen up.” Shiro was almost shocked by the way Lance had put on an authority voice so quickly. The voice seemed not to suit him.  
“I want you all to be quiet - no yelling, no fighting. Just unpack your stuff, change into your pj's and brush your teeth. AND I will check your breath if I need to, I swear.”

Shiro knew what he had to do first, and to set the kids in motion he strode over to his bag to unpack, and to take his bottles of medicine out of there. Shiro searched around the corner where a small cubby was packed away with two long blue lockers. He took the key out and opened it up, surprised that there was no comedic dead racoon in there, and packed his valuables away.

Shiro could hear Lance laying rules down, so he quickly popped open the bottle and took a small pill out, popping it on his tongue and stashing the lot in his locker. He knocked his head back and swallowed, and quickly came back into the room.

“Everyone got their pyjamas in their hands? Lance, there’s somewhere they can change right?” Shiro asked the second question quietly, just to Lance. In return, he received a nod.

“The bathrooms, yeah. This is why this cabin is difficult though because the bathroom block is a separate building, and in the other cabins they’re attached. Guys, come with me and I’ll show you where the bathroom is!” Lance called out, ushering the group together with Shiro’s help in picking up stragglers.

Lance took them into the small cubby and opened a door, revealing a long portico styled corridor connecting to the bathroom block. Shiro wrinkled his nose.

“Alright I know it looks oakey smokey old but don’t worry, if you need to go into the bathroom in the night come to either Shiro or me and we’ll take you across this bit.”

Shiro could tell immediately this was not boding well with the kids, who most likely were used to creature comfort, although one kid piped up and broke the tension as they crossed the wood corridor.

“I was in this cabin last year with counsellor Pidge, and one time we saw a squirrel fight coming back. Guys, it’s really cool, don’t look scared of it!” Shiro was grateful for this older boy trying to stick up for Blue cabin’s ghastly setup because Shiro was not at all digging this Friday 13th Jason killer vibe.

Lance unlatched the bathroom door and Shiro was genuinely shocked that the bathrooms were actually clean and spacious and… nice? There were six toilet cubicles and six shower blocks, and all of them with marine blue doors and white tiles.

“Oh wow. Oh wow, it’s..” Shiro trailed off, looking around them as the kids ran into blocks to start changing.

Lance smiled smugly and beamed at Shiro.

“Actually not the bathroom from Saw? Yeah, Coran is our maintenance dude, he’s a wizard with interior, like if Allura gives him the go-ahead to repair something the man fixes it in more than one sense.”

After their bathroom tour and after their brood were all dressed in their bright printed pyjamas, they travelled back to the main cabin and let them play around while Shiro and Lance took turns getting into their own sleeping clothes.

Lance strode out into the cabin in long, comfortable shorts and a tank top with bright beachy colours, making a show of yawning and stretching his limbs above his head to stretch.

“Gosh I’m _beat!_ How do you guys have so much energy still?”

Shiro sighed from his bottom bunk bed, feeling the slight burn in his legs from a day spent using them. Seriously, these kids were still running from bed to bed, pulling out whatever little games and activity books their parents had packed them. _Oh to be young and on a constant sugar high_ , Shiro thought morosely.

He kind of wished he had his iPad at least to watch a tv show, but he won’t whine about it.

“I know you guys have bottomless energy supplies but the rules _are_ lights out at ten- if you guys can get yourself in your own beds in ten minutes too, I can start telling you a bedtime story yeah?" Lance asked the group, hands on his hips as he looked around the cabin.

A little girl from a top bunk near shouted out.

"Shiro, Tom says there's bears in the woods!!" Shiro rolled his eyes at the immediate denial and near tantrum of Tom himself.

"Tom, there's no bears around here." Shiro said strictly, "And if there are, you know I won’t let any get near you." He cast a very light-hearted glance to Lance. He hoped that there are actually no bears around.

Lance snickered and leaned his hand on Shiro’s shoulder, folding one leg behind the other as he shook his head.

"Actually, there's a lot of bears around this place. The last sighting was two weeks ago, but the last time we saw one here was two years ago."

Shiro sighed deeply at the immediate contradiction.

_‘Of course.’_

There was a silence that descended on the group; he had everyone's attention and Lance bathed in it.

He pushed off and made his way into the centre of the room, commanding his audience. The little girl who spoke up had gripped the front of her pink nightgown tightly and was pulling the covers up to her knees.

"Two years ago, while Hunk made his signature homemade tortillas,” Lance’s voice dropped low and dramatic, floating his hands in front of him, "there was an ominous scratching on the main cabin's door. So, me and Keith went outside to check it out…”

Lance looked at Shiro with a grin and received a very hard eyebrow raise at his antics.

“Lance… what are you doing?” Lance straightened up for a moment and made a high pitched, irritated voice, frowning.

“Dude- _storytelling!?_ ”

Shiro rolled his eyes and just laid back in his bunk bed. It squeaked under his weight and Shiro cringed at how much sound that was going to make during the night. Without interruption, Lance continued.

“We walked around the cabin, searching for the source of the scratching. I stepped around the corner of the cabin as quiet as a mouse… when I saw it.”

Pause for dramatic effect.

“A HUGE, furry brown mother bear- pawing at the side of the cabin! The main cabin was on lockdown, Allura and Coran guarded the doors while Keith and I bravely drew it away into the woods.”

Connie could not hold herself composed any longer and shouted out from her top bunk, lifting herself up on her knees.

“Were you scared? I would so scared of seeing a bear I would scream at the top of my lungs, like this-“ She took a huge breath about to let rip a scream before Lance rushed over and put a hand on her mouth.

“Connie, hun, I know I'm a great narrator, but maybe screaming in the middle of the night isn’t such a good idea?”

She deflated and a few kids giggled as Lance stepped away.

“But, let me tell you, I have never ever done something that frightening. I could have wet my pants if I had seen it alone! But lucky for me, Keith doesn’t actually know what fear is." Lance smiled fondly, sitting back onto the bed and crossing his legs.

Shiro remembered something suddenly and grinned, folding his arms over his stomach. 

"That's how Keith got the scar on his cheek, isn't it?" He asked, remembering how Keith had said in a call that he had cut his cheek up at camp and that it was from defending the camp from a bear. But also that it was 'no big deal' because he could hear Shiro getting worried on the phone. Lance turned around to look at him and cocked on eyebrow up, confused for a moment, before he took on a more mirthful smile. 

"No? He didn't get hurt shooing the bear away."

"What?" Shiro frowned right back, confused himself.   
"But he said he got it at camp." 

"Yeah, he did, not from a bear." 

Shiro opened his mouth and closed it again, wondering if he was remembering this all wrong. But.. no, he remembers Keith saying it was from a bear!

"Well then how did he get it?" 

Lance snorted and leaned over, shaking his head as he giggled, obviously he knew what was going on before Shiro did. Shiro's brow drew down harshly in demand for an answer. 

"I knew he would lie about it! Oh man, it was so funny, listen to this-He was flicking his knife around and then carved his name into a tree but he noticed he wrote Kieth; K-I-E-T-H. He got so mad he threw it at the tree but it boomeranged back to him and cut up his cheek!"

Shiro stared at Lance open-mouthed and then burst out into laughter.

"You're lying- there's no way!" 

"Pidge has video proof!! Allura had to drive him to the hospital and he had to undergo a knife safety course before he could use his knife again!" Lance laughed, and the chorus of wicked giggles around them echoed out through the windows and into the dark night. It was much less scary in here after that little revealing tale.

"So, you don't want to encounter a bear, trust me. Even Shiro will hardly stand a chance with a bear that has paws as big as my whole head."

"I bet that's the scariest thing you ever seen!" A kid chirped. "The scariest thing I saw was a spider in the zoo bigger than my face!"

"I saw a lady that could have been a witch once and she had a black cat that hissed at me!"

Suddenly everyone was sharing and talking over each other, and the tension from Lance’s impromptu storytime had dissolved completely into a comforting natter. Shiro shook his head but he smiled as Lance sat on the other end of his bed to listen to the kids' tales of horror and superstition.

“I liked the story.” He offered, and Lance couldn't help but snicker.

“The one about the epic battle with mother nature's fuzzy bouncer or the one where your brother is a complete idiot?”

Shiro laughed gently in reply and looked around the cabin too. He saw Milo was bunched up in his bed, watching the other kids talk excitedly around him. He frowned, knowing a shy kid that just wanted to join in from a mile away, and smiled kindly as he got his attention.

“Milo? The scariest thing that you’ve ever seen?” Milo looked over to Shiro and shrugged shyly, before casting his eyes to his knees and piped up in his quiet voice.

"My dad set off a firework in the house on accident.. it made a loud bang and exploded."

Connie flipped herself over the top of the bed and held onto the railings so she was looking at Milo upside down, making the dark haired boy jump out his skin and Shiro nearly have a heart attack as he half dived to catch her. He let go of a breath once he realised she was holding on to the railing.

“Woah a firework inside your house!? That’s so cool! Was it a big one or a sparkler or one of those golden ones with the-“

“Connie,” Shiro said sternly. Milo was pink with the praise and shrank into his pyjama shirt.  
“Happy you’re excited, not happy about swinging over the rail, okay, you could break your neck.” Shiro placed his hands on Connie’s back and helped her back up on her bed, feeling slightly stressed out now.

“I have three gymnastics badges!” She argued indignantly. Shiro help up his hands in apology and turned to Lance for some help.

Lance was looking up from his bed with a soft smile before he clapped his hands loudly to get everyone’s attention.

“Alright guys, lights out! Now I’ll warn you if you stay up whispering all night Shiro and I are going to be grumpy and we will without a doubt cut off your right to pancakes for breakfast.”

With such a threat hanging in the air Shiro found that a lot of the kids suddenly found they wanted to behave, and dug themselves under their covers.

Shiro did the same, mouthing a thank you at Lance as he winked back at Shiro and climbed the bunk bed ladder. Connie sat up despite only having been laid down for a grand total of six seconds.

"Shiro what's the scariest thing _you_ ever saw?"

Shiro looked out at all the faces looking at him expectantly and squirmed.

"Uh... once um.." He sifted his mind for something, most importantly child appropriate.

He can't say the scariest thing he had ever seen was the stump of his arm freshly blown off, splintered bloody bone and torn flesh, explosions like the loud bangs of fireworks. He couldn't possibly explain that whatever he used to be scared of was nothing in comparison to that day, to the things he had seen and the things he had done with his own hands. These kids were innocents, unexposed to true violence and horror, at least as far as Shiro is aware.

Shiro shook his head of the images.

"Uh.. well, the scariest thing.." Death? Jesus no- a zoo animal?? Not even nearly cool. He rubbed his head where his undercut grew into longer strands and the silence was almost crushing him, pressuring any answer out of him.

"The.. scariest thing that I have ever seen was a huge, green, spindly stick insect that Keith brought home as a 'pet', and made me get in close to see it. And it jumped right on my face! I was so scared I screamed and fell backwards and tipped the whole sofa upside down over me."

That at least got a giggle with the group. 

Lance flicked the lights off and let that last story sit, calling out gentle goodnights to the kids he could remember the names of, and waiting for each small reply back. 

"Goodnight, Shiro. Sweet dreams." 

"Goodnight, Lance." He hoped so.


	4. Hold My Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, since we officially have a camp of kids ready to receive their swim badges, it’s time for them to show off. And what better way to earn your stripes than win them in a race?” he explained, and Shiro nodded along with that. 
> 
> “SO, Allura is going to announce a race at the pond. Each cabin does a race for front crawl, breaststroke, or dolphin stroke. And, for a bit of the ol’ razzle dazzle, the cabin leaders are going to race as well! So bring you’re A-game because I won’t go easy.” 
> 
> \--  
> On your marks, get set, GO! The Voltron Camp Challenge is today! A week into camp and Shiro experiences the rivalry between Lance and Keith first hand. Remember Lance, the fun is in the participating.

Shiro woke at the crack of dawn as he usually does, grunting as he rubbed his eyes from sleep. The sun was streaming in through the weak blinds, smoothing over little heads popping out from blankets and soft bleached wood. It was the morning. And Shiro slept right through the night, as he had done for six nights now.

The first week of camp was over, and to be honest, Shiro had barely noticed. Maybe it’s all the exercise and the socialisation and the good food, but he’s been feeling much better. Physically at least, much better.

Shiro smiled and slowly pulled himself out of the bed, gritting his teeth at how loud it squeaked, and pulled out his jogging clothes while checking around the cabin. The gentle snores surrounding him allowed him to let go of a breath and continue.

This had been his routine for the past six mornings; to wake up before everyone else and get a quick 45 minute jog in before the camp woke up.

Shiro stepped out and took a deep breath in, the clean and fresh air of the forest filling his lungs. The only sounds were the rushing of wind in the branches and the call little birds launching off them, diving and swerving through their flight paths.

Shiro watched them a moment before he released his breath and took off in a jog up the path.

He carried on at an easy run, taking strides over roots and dips in the way. He ran past the lake, a dark and sunny colour with the dawn just touching its waters. He ran around it and snaked back up, seeing the Yellow cabin as he did, where no doubt Hunk was waking up to start breakfast going.

His workload was disproportionate to the rest of them, which was unfair, but Hunk seemed never to mind. Shiro pointed it out once at dinner but the other man just beamed and shrugged.

_‘Well cooking is my passion and I don’t get tired of doing it. Besides, I have Shay to help prep everything for me, and Allura and Coran come and help with cleaning up so I can take my kids to their activities. It’s no biggie!’_

Hunk was a really good guy. Truly, a good man, but a man that needed to know when he was due some slack.

He’d seen Shay in the kitchen before, had obviously met Allura, but Coran had remained somewhat a mystery. Apparently he was eccentric and loud, a kind old man, and yet for a week, Shiro had managed to completely miss him.

The large garden with rows of vegetables and fruit came up on his right, a gleaming glass greenhouse placed neatly at the bottom of it.

A loud crash and shatter caught Shiro’s attention and he stopped in his tracks, breathing heavily as he listened to an onslaught of what he assumed to be swearing.

Shiro frowned and pulled his dampening sweatshirt off his chest, hurrying over through the garden to the greenhouse. No one who had any right being there would be up at this damn time and that leads Shiro to only one conclusion.

There’s an intruder.

Shiro opened the door to see a man bent over a large pot that lay shattered on the floor, spilling soil over the wooden boards, tomatoes squashed as the man held his foot in pain.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing in here?” Shiro demanded, causing the skinny man to jump a foot and let out a surprised cry.

“Crikey!!” He then stood up and draw himself into a defensive stature, holding his hands up like a vintage boxer, wearing floral garden gloves.   
“What about yourself, you ruffian, I ought to let you know I trained boxing with the champions of Australia- don’t let my image as a stylish gent fool you, I know how to hold my own against the likes of you, sonny!”

Shiro blinked at the funny looking guy in front of him. He must have been 50 or more years old, with flaming ginger hair and a curled waxed moustache. Certainly not what Shiro would expect from someone breaking into a greenhouse to steal anything.

And, he was wearing a blue overall. Shiro narrowed his eyes and dropped his aggressive stance.

“Coran…? The maintenance man?” He asked tentatively. The man tilted up a thick eyebrow.

“That’s the name, repair and mechanics is the game, lad. And you?”

Shiro sighed, reaching his hand out to shake with Coran. He can’t believe he nearly busted a senior worker...

“Shiro, I’m a new counsellor. Blue cabin, with Lance.”

The man widened his eyes and then straightened up with a bright beaming smile, gripping Shiro’s hand enthusiastically in greeting.

“Well, excuse my poor manners! I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting you yet Shiro my boy, I was caught off guard because no one is usually up at this time! I was getting in some of these lovely ripe tomatoes for a fry up breakfast this morning but I stubbed my toe on a post and knocked the whole pot off the table-“

Shiro pulled his hand out from the shake and laughed nervously at Coran’s antics, turning his brow up in confusion at the scene.

“-and now we’ve got more of a squashed tomato for breakfast, I’m afraid!”

“Sounds uh... well, sounds like quite a situation. Do you need some help?” He offered, figuring no one else would be awake yet so he had some time. Coran beamed back at him and clapped Shiro on the shoulder.

“Ah, a selfless man, Shiro, but really it’s just a broken pot. Nothing an expert in maintenance can’t handle, don’t you worry. You had best get going and make sure all those little ones get up and dressed in time to get their breakfast, it’s a long day ahead!”

“Right.. um, thanks, Coran, see you around.”

Shiro smiled and nodded, turning to leave the not-intruder to his own devices when a cough stopped him from slipping through the framed glass door.

“Um.. but if it’s not too much bother would you haul over a bag of soil for me Shiro?”

* * *

Shiro came through the door to the cabin sweatier than he expected, since he had ended up fetching two bags of soil and a new pot and then picking the whole thing up to place back on the bench. As he closed the door he saw a few faces scrunch up and some heads nuzzle back into their pillows. Everyone was waking up.

Shiro passed by his bed and looked at Lance in the top bunk. He snored gently through his nose, and his eye mask had slipped off one side of his face and mussed his hair into slight curls. Shiro could not help a smile on his thin lips as he watched Lance doze.

He checked the time and saw a whole 15 minutes remained before everyone had to be let up, so Shiro took his camp clothes and his toiletries to the bathroom quickly. He showered, looking straight ahead and washing himself down only as long as he needed to. He saw no need to stand and enjoy the hot flow of water, no need to be exposed as he was any longer than necessary.

He towelled off, dressing, dragging a comb through his hair. He was ready and dressed, then padded over the short corridor to the cabin. In the daytime, it was quaint and sunny, not nearly as menacing as it was in the dark.

As he stepped back into the cabin, a loud, chiming alarm sounded and caused Lance to spasm once in his bed, a guttural groan the only thing signalling to Shiro that Lance was losing his battle with refusing to stay asleep. Shiro again could not help but smile gently at Lance waving his arms around to knock the battery alarm clock on the tall bedside shelf.

He came up to the bedside again and leaned his arm against the wooden rail, watching Lance (completely unaware of him) scratch his head and pull his eye mask off and groan.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Shiro spoke, making Lance twitch back in shock again and open his bleary eyes. Clearly, Lance was not a morning person. Or at least, he wasn’t a waking up kind of person.

“Did you seriously wake up looking like that?” Lance asked, his voice caught a little with sleep, but he cleared it quickly.

Shiro felt a tug in his chest and embarrassment colour his cheeks. He leaned back quickly, thinking that no one would want to wake up with a scar in their eyesight.

“No- no I woke up early and went for my jog.”

Lance let go of a breath and rubbed his face again, this time gathering all his effort up to pull himself from his bed and sit up.

“Good, no one has any business looking that good this early..” He muttered, shuffling to the ladder and getting down a little ungracefully.

Shiro felt as if his throat was clogging up. He looked down and away from Lance and narrowed his eyes, swallowing thickly. He tried not to think about how much that compliment made him despise himself.

Lance stretched and yawned, and then clapped his hands together loudly.

“Rise and shine everyone, let’s get going! Come on come on- we’re using up daylight!”

* * *

"Hey, tell me, what kind of sports do you like to do?"

Lance asked, scooping a hefty amount of tomato and pepper avocado mash onto his toast.

"Sports?" Shiro responded, pushing his lips together in a line as he seemed habit of doing when he was thinking. Lance watched with muted affection as he made a tower of fresh sliced fruit on his tray.

"I didn't really like... sports. I was the kid who read books in his recess periods at school, and I was good at soccer and basketball and those things, but I didn’t enjoy it as a past time. I guess if I picked a sport, rock climbing?"

Lance was having none of it however, knowing that can’t be the case, and pointed a croissant at him in accusation.

“Liar,” he put the pastry on his plate, “You don’t get looking like _this_ from jogging.” Lance poked Shiro’s peck for emphasis, making Shiro grunt and hold his peck in defence of Lance’s hand. Lance giggled at Shiro’s apparent pout.

"I'm more used to the gym. Weightlifting, endurance training, hand to hand, that sort of thing. Why?"

"Well, because you're a camp counsellor? For like, kid's sports?" Lance shot back, and Shiro blushed nearly raspberry in realisation. Lance was proud to have caught Shiro out there.

So far Shiro was doing pretty amazing, in everyone's opinion. Lance was pretty proud how quickly he got a grip on the schedules, and it was a serious relief that he could leave him alone with the kids too and do some other jobs. He trusted him a lot, actually.

They sat and ate their breakfasts, their cabin kids happy to inhale the freshly made pastries Hunk had prepared specially. Friday was their treat day, but Sunday they got the afternoon off to relax.

“Never mind, but can you race?” Lance asked. Shiro looked up at him with first an inquisitive raise in his eyebrow, but Lance was perceptive and had eyes like a hawk and knew what competitive interest looked like on someone’s face.

“Depends. What kind of race?” He asked, sipping from the green plastic cup of coffee.

Lance sat back and folded his arms, levelling back a competitive smirk at Shiro. He could tell he was coaxing a response from Shiro, pulling his interest in. Shiro had plateaued after he had fallen into a routine, much like some of the kids. The problem was Shiro was a _counsellor_ and it was in his job to encourage and energise the kids, Shiro had to be interested.

Okay, the first week was just getting the kids their swim badges in Blue cabin, but he has to really get with the programme now and encourage the kids to use those skills they’ve learned!

“Well, since we officially have a camp of kids ready to receive their swim badges, it’s time for them to show off. And what better way to earn your stripes than win them in a race?” he explained, and Shiro nodded along with that.

“ _SO_ , Allura is going to announce a race at the pond. Each cabin does a race for front crawl, breaststroke, or dolphin stroke. And, for a bit of the ol’ razzle dazzle, the cabin leaders are going to race as well! So bring you’re A-game because I won’t go easy.”

Shiro let a laugh slip out as if he hadn’t expected to keep hold of it.

Lance felt a flux in time; the second it took from Shiro’s resting face to split into a smile seemed elongated and left Lance holding his breath, so he didn’t blink and miss it.

You can guess during these past six days Lance has missed out quite a few breaths in response to Shiro’s smile.

“I won’t expect you to go easy then. May the best man win.” Shiro went back to his breakfast happily, seeming to be a little bit more responsive for the activities now.

The kids ate their breakfasts and put their trays away, and Shay and Coran moved about in the kitchen to start cleaning up. Hunk would be needed for his round of challenges too. Allura came to the front with a few cardboard boxes and set them down, facing the kids and waiting until she had silence.

“Good morning campers, and may I say, well done! All of you have made it through the first week and you’ve all been a very impressive group, my counsellors have been reporting back with very high praise for some of you. Today is the Voltron challenge, where we want you to take the skills you’ve been learning this past week and apply it, and show off to everyone what you can do.

“So, we’re going to get into Cabin groups, Blue cabin will split in two, and I want all of you to come up and get a Camp Voltron t-shirt coloured the same as your cabin leader’s, then we can all go across to the greenhouse for our first challenge of the day.”

Allura’s smile was so bright and encouraging Lance felt he was ready to run over this second just to make her pride! Allura had that effect. He had been crushing hard for _years_ and-

Lance felt like he went cold.

He’s been so wrapped up in Shiro, Lance had forgotten all of this year’s pick-up lines, Christ he had practically IGNORED her-

“So, without further ado, may I have the courageous Red cabin up here to collect their shirts?” Allura asked, pulling out small bright red t-shirts as the Red cabin table rushed up to get them.

“I’m assuming you’ll take six and I’ll take six?” Shiro asked, turning to Lance, who realised the kids were all looking at their cabin leaders expectantly. Some of the kids clung to their friends, and Lance just had to laugh at their defensive action.

“Don’t worry guys, you can split up with whoever you want, just make sure it’s a group of six, okay? And yeah, man, sorry I know you love me and I’ll that but, we gotta lay down our partnership and take up a bitter rivalry since we’re competitors now.”

Shiro sighed and drew a finger down his cheek in place of a tear.

“I’ll be sure to mend my broken heart in the victory my team will win.”

* * *

This Voltron Challenge was…

Surprisingly intense.

The morning activity was Hunk’s, it was only _cake decorating_ for god’s sake and Shiro felt like he watched Armageddon go down.

Firstly, Keith and Lance were insane. Pidge as well, a secret psychopath.

The second the timer went off, Keith had barked his orders to start mixing icing and Lance’s team raided the sprinkles. Pidge was playing tactical and organised each kid on one section of decoration each.

Shiro looked horrified at Hunk, who only guided his kids into happily decorating as a team and gave him a withered and seasoned shrug.

Naturally, Shiro ended up last, because again, _cake decorating_ should not be a _contact sport, Keith._ His kids made bright blue cupcakes, with chocolate stars and a very generous amount of red strawberry laces (they were supposed to be planets so the laces were the rings).

Lance’s cupcakes looked like a unicorn had been sick on them, but, gained third place. Pidge, surprisingly, took the lead in this one, and the way Keith and Lance were grumbling at each other as they left the carnage of fondant and sprinkles behind, they were plotting their Green cabin leader’s demise.

Pidge’s challenge was intellectual, where Allura gave a quiz on some of the woodland plants the kids had been learning to recognise. They were all given large cards with plants printed on, and had to run up to hang them on the wooden-hooked answer board before the other teams could get there.

Shiro’s team came second there, a triumph, barely getting in before the other Blue cabin could throw their answer on the board, mainly due to Milo having a sudden adrenaline rush and sprinting with his picture of toothwort clutched in his hands to the answer board.

The pride on his face was unbearably cute when he swivelled around to look at Shiro. Milo even indulged him in a double high five when he ran back to the group, swarmed by cheers that seemed to shock him a little bit.

“Good job Milo, you won that one for us.” Shiro praised, placing his hand on the top of Milo’s shaggy head of hair.

“He’s winning again...” Lance grunted, looking at the back of Keith’s head, saddling up to Shiro with his arms crossed firmly over his lithe chest.

Shiro battled his smirk down as he ushered his group down the hill, following after Keith to get to the Red Cabin challenge.

“Well, he’s very good.” Shiro shrugged.

Lance seemed to tense at that, looking down at his scruffy trainers, defeated. His shoulders slumped and he idly kicked a rock in silence as they continued. Shiro’s eyebrows knitted in concern.

“Too bad you’ll get the edge on him in the next challenge I guess.” The taller smiled, bumping his shoulder. Lance grumbled, but he pulled his head up to look up at Shiro. Their eyes locked and Lance held the gaze rather intensely, until he had found the genuine approval in Shiro’s eyes, and his face split into a grin.

“You bet your butt. He slipped up this year, his team event is archery. Give your rival with perfect aim that challenge, huh? Dumbass, I’m gonna demolish you guys!”

“Language, Lance, 8 year olds present!” Allura barked from behind them.

The two of them laughed at Lance’s boyish confidence, meeting with the rest of the camp at the bottom of the hill where a line of targets were set up.

And yes, Lance was great at this challenge. A Bulls-eye every time he shot. When those arrows were unleashed from Lance’s trained grip, Shiro swore he could hear the arrowheads slice the air. The triumphant fist thrust in the air after every shot also made for a pretty victorious, handsome picture. Of course, Lance wasn’t counting on his kids being a little worse at aiming than a full-grown man.

Shiro heard a low whine and looked over to Milo struggling to get the tail of the arrow clipped into the bow. The taller smiled patiently and knelt beside Milo.

“Do you want some help?” Shiro asked, but the dark haired boy shook his head and determinedly stuck the arrow into place. The small boy quickly pulled the bow back and took a hazardous shot, too quick to make up for his earlier fumble. The arrow whizzed pathetically into the grass.

“Hold on one second,” Shiro said gently, holding his arms out and tilting Milo’s bony elbow out as the boy trembled in an effort to hold the arrow against the tension in the bow.

He let loose and the arrow spun into the outer circle. Milo huffed in frustration, his eyes looking glassy as he only had one shot left.

Keith noticed the particular struggle that Shiro’s team was having, so snuck over and leaned down to point at Milo’s feet.

“Put your legs shoulder length apart, facing the side, and then turn your upper body to the target, like we did in practice.” He walked him through, and Milo copied. Shiro tilted Milo’s bow up just a little bit, giving him a smile and a nod.

“You got this, buddy. You’ll make the team proud either way. Take a breath, pull back, line the arrow up with the yellow circle..”

“You can do it, Milo!” Connie shrieked from behind him, a little too enthusiastic. Milo jumped a foot, letting go of the bow and arrow in his fright.

They watched as the arrow sailed over the target and hit the shrubs behind the targets. Shiro whistled.

“Strong arm, Milo. Well done.” Luckily the team cheered the shot going as far as it did, and Milo could at least return to the group feeling only slightly upset with himself.

…"And the winner of the archery challenge is… the Red Cabin!” Allura cheered, and eight little voices screeched in victory. Lance groaned and smacked his head into the nearest tree.

“Damn that Mullet!”

* * *

This is the worst… this is the worst!

Lance was not going to have another Voltron challenge victory taken from him by a guy who voluntarily wears a cropped white and red leather jacket AND who doesn’t even care about winning!!!

‘It’s the fun you have that counts’ his ASS Allura, Lance was out for blood this year, and he was going to win, and he was going to look so good doing it.

Now, it was after lunch, and with fuel in the tank, and a reasonable hour spent doing some ball games and scoring some extra points, it was time for the Blue Cabin challenge.

And this time, he had it in the bag.

Lance and Shiro may be the swim teachers and water sports leaders, but while they’ve been doing that Lance has secretly been keeping score. The Red cabin was by far the weakest swimmers, even the ones who had already passed their swimming badges before they came to camp. The Yellow cabin had nearly all new swimmers and Green cabin was a mixed bunch, and Shiro’s half of the cabin (while he loved his cabin as a whole) stood _no chance_ against the might of Connie, Sam, and Mohamed, his bronze certificate swimmers.

Oh yeah. This time, they’re all going down.

“Alright, guys! Listen up. The task is to complete a relay race! I want you guys to swim out to the yellow line first, dive under it, then to the red line and do your best stroke all the way back! And for bonus points, I have left shells at the red line border. _Only if you’re up to it_ , dive down to the bottom and collect a shell each. They’re worth an extra two points!”

Lance stood triumphantly at the edge of the pool, hands on his hips in his swimming trunks and smirking like he had already won. He met Keith’s eyes and the Red cabin leader rocked a brow in suspicion.

“The cabin leader goes last, the first team to have all their members go out and back again win ten points! The next team, eight points, then six points, then five and finally four.”

The whistle blew, and the splashing began.

The whole pond was taken over by the sound of clumsy limbs clashing against the waters surface, and screams of encouragement and cheers at a constant cacophonic roar as swimmers sped through, or doggy paddled, through the course.

It was no surprise at all that Lance’s team was the first to finish, with four extra shells, and Lance dived quickly into his best dolphin stroke to bring them home for victory!

Hunk’s team crashed into second, Hunk being the excellent swimmer and strongest diver he appeared triumphantly with a large clamshell in hand.

Pidge should have been next but they were pathetic at the diving attempt and got themselves confused on the direction they were swimming in for a bit, allowing Keith that tiny advantage to throw himself on the shore with a whoop.

And, last but not least, Shiro dived into the water and prepared to finish off the relay for his team.

It's...a sight to see Shiro swim. The way all his muscles are so pronounced when he moves, flexing and releasing. It was damn hot, Lance admitted it. But then again, Shiro generally was pretty hot. With sudden and embarrassing surprise he realised Shiro had dived in with a different swim shirt than the other one, this one had very short sleeves and Lance saw peekings of pink, shiny flesh across his biceps.

Scars didn't exactly matter to him, he had enough himself from all his siblings and accidents as a kid. He couldn’t count how many he had just from landing in the rock pools around Varadero! There was a piece of his upper left canine missing, hand scars and burns from cooking and many, many others.

But Lance got the sense that Shiro had more… wear and tear than he was letting on.

And the prosthetic was fine too, it was only mysterious. Lance still hasn’t really asked about it yet… it seems rude, but he’s known Shiro a whole week at close quarters and…

He just expected to know a little more about Shiro by now.

* * *

“Now, after careful tallying, I can happily announce that the winner of the Voltron Challenge, by just one point-“

Come on Allura, say Blue Cabin, come on come on come on…

“-Is the Red cabin with forty-one points!”

**_NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!_ **

* * *

"You copy?" Pidge waved their hand in front of Lance's face, who flinched.

"Wha?" He muttered, looking at the frowning person. Their hair was fluffing up nicely in the drying warmth of the sunset, which the whole camp was basking in before bedtime as a treat for their hard work.

"I said, could you please take my cabin to bed? I have to run some errands for Allura for clean up. Shiro can keep an eye on your own cabin in the meantime, he'll be able to handle them, won't he?" Pidge asked in a slight concern, casting his eyes to Shiro.

Lance rolled his eyes, looking at Shiro who was letting the kids of green cabin swing off his prosthetic and indulging in letting them climb him like a jungle gym while Keith watched in amusement.

"Duh? He's got this! The kids love him, Shiro's...great. Really great," He smiled fondly until Pidge snickered at him.

"Oh, you've got it so bad already," Their devilish eyes glinted (or was that the glasses?) while Lance cleared his throat and fidgeted under the accusation.

"Excuse me!? I don't know what you're talking about!" Lance crossed his arms to defend himself, blushing. They poked him, laughing.

"Sorry, Lance, but everyone can see it. You broadcast your feelings right onto your face! Don’t worry I’m sure Allura won’t be too heartbroken. Anyways, I'll get my cabin for you and get Shiro a heads up about the plan."

Pidge skirted past Shiro and told him what they had to do, Shiro nodding in understanding. He gave a wave to Lance and the Green cabin kids trotted over to Lance to fight for his hand to hold, or at least the younger ones did, and Lance disappeared over the gravel path with them.

He received a walkie talkie message as he arrived at Green cabin.

_‘Lance? I'm taking Blue kids to the cabin now, okay?’_ Lance smiled and brought out the walkie talkie.

“You know it’s been a week and you’ve still never said ‘over’, over.” He spoke into the box. It beeped again and Lance anxiously listened for the reply.

_‘Nothing that any of you could do would make me say ‘over’. It’s dumb.’_

Lance giggled fondly.

Shiro gathered the Blue kids up, herding them into a line and turned to the oldest kid. "You wanna lead the way and I'll take the rear, Sam?" He asked. Sam was nearly 13, this was his last year at the camp since it was a little junior for him. But, Shiro and Lance were trying to compensate for that by giving him some more leadership roles to keep him occupied.

Sam puffed his chest up and lead a march, leading the kids and calling out to the kids on the way to Blue cabin while Shiro kept his eye on everyone at the back.

They piled into the cabin tired from the day, worn out by the challenges and successes of the day, but buzzing from the excitement. Connie came bounding up to Shiro and pulled on his sleeve, tugging him towards the door.

“Shiro- Shiro Shiro Shiro I gotta go _really badly!”_ Shiro sighed, he was so tired, but he smiled gently and took Connie through the corridor to the bathroom.

“Alright, alright don’t worry you won’t _explode,_ Connie.”

* * *

Shiro swears he only took his eyes off these damn kids for a second…

When he walked back into the cabin with Connie... carnage.

He opened the door and was swamped with kids all in tears, and for the past week they had been actual angels for the most part, so it panicked him immediately.

“What- what, what’s wrong?” He asked quickly, bending down to try and shush the kids who were most frantic, however, they quickly dragged Shiro over to the scene of the crime.

Ah.

"What did you..?” Shiro trailed off, pulling fragments of wood off his bed.   
“How did you guys break the bed?" Shiro asked, putting his hand up through the shattered wood of his bunk bed to push up into Lance's mattress. The rest of the frame gave a creek.

Damn, this is going to fall apart.

"Tonya jumped on the beds and started it!" Taran accused with tears running down his cheeks. Tonya cried harder and shook her head.

"I wasn't! I wasn't!!" Shiro hushed them all, kneeling down and putting his hand on Tonya's shoulder. He thought he should have been stern, or angry, but with everyone obviously feeling guilty he couldn’t be mean to them.

And Tonya’s big brown eyes were still streaming tears, Shiro felt weak. He just wanted to stop her crying!

“Hey, hey, Tonya come here, you’re not in trouble.” Shiro cooed and Tonya crowded herself into Shiro’s chest, putting her head on his shoulder and hiccupping as she calmed down and Shiro wrapped an arm around her and patted her back.

“Sam said you were gonna kick me out!!” She wailed into his shoulder. Sam bristled and seethed on the spot.

“I didn’t say that!”

“Sam, not helpful,” Shiro said sharply, stroking tears off Tonya’s dark cheeks.

“I didn’t say that, she’s a liar!”

“Sam, _shut up._ ” He snapped, looking at Sam with a harsh glare. His chest felt tight with guilt at the way Sam curled his lip in and his chin tremble.

“Alright, no one is in trouble. It doesn’t matter who broke my bed, or what happened, just as long as no one got hurt. No one is hurt, right?”

Shiro realised that the cabin had gone quiet and looked up at the door, where Lance was standing at the other end of the cabin looking at the chaos in front of him. Lance’s eyes were wide and astonishment painted across his face.

“I left you alone for like ten minutes!” Lance exclaimed, his hands thrown out in front of him.   
“And my kids are crying! What did you even do? Wait- what did you do to my bed!?”

His pale cheeks filled with shameful red, at his chance to show he could handle the kids just by himself, he lost control. Shiro had barely gotten poor Tonya to stop crying like she was going to be kicked out the camp and into the woods!

"I'm so sorry, Lance, I don't… I know it doesn’t look good but no one is hurt!" Shiro began explaining, pointing to his bed. "I don't know how uh, I wasn’t keeping my eye on them and some of the kids were... Please, take my bed for tonight, I'll take the floor until we can fix it."

Lance waved his hand and dismissed it all entirely.

"Okay, I don't know what happened, and I don't care. No one is getting into trouble, I promise, but in return, you all have to help clean up, okay? Shiro,” Lance directed his attention at the guilty counsellor, who straightened up in attention to Lance, “Coran can fix the bed tomorrow. No one is sleepin’ on the floor, yeah? It's okay. Let's just help each other and tidy up the cabin!"

With a clap of Lance’s hands, the kids all shuffled around a bit picking their stuff up and calmly getting into bed. Shiro helped Tonya to bed and passed her a discarded stuffed sloth.

“You won’t kick me out of the camp?” She asked again, voice tired and soft. Shiro sighed and smiled gently as he shook his head.

“No way. Everyone would miss you too much.”

What a way to end such an exciting day…

He turned to Lance and looked at him like a kicked dog.

“I took Connie to the bathroom and when I came back, this is what it looked like-“

"Shiro, calm down dude." Lance almost laughed, but his easy smile did wonders for undoing the knot in Shiro’s gut. He softly grabbed Shiro's upper arms.

"See, twelve kids for one guy is a lot. That's why we've teamed up. It's okay, I'm not mad or disappointed so stop lookin’ at me like you’re a kicked puppy.” Lance spoke quietly so the kids wouldn’t hear them.   
“Plus, I will not have you sleep on the ground! We either both have the bed or both sleep on the ground."

Shiro sighed and nodded reluctantly at Lance’s soothing smile. He expected that he would have faced some form of punishment for letting their beds get broken but, Lance seemed unbothered aside from the initial shock.

He still felt so bad about the whole thing, he knew Lance had been saying to everyone that he had done so well so far. Keith was saying that Lance sings his praises all the time. There's just a part of him that hates to disappoint Lance.

“Alright. I’ll call Coran.” Shiro turned to get his walkie talkie and looked around the cabin at the kids putting themselves to bed. They all seemed a little down, still.

Lance took a moment to look around as well and gave a decided hum; he hopped over to the small storage room and rummaged around in there before he appeared again brandishing a ukulele. 

"Alright everyone, we had an awesome day today so let’s not go to bed and feel down! Alright, we’re gonna hit this sing-along off with one everyone should know."

Lance started plucking the strings in an absolutely unmistakable tune. Heads popped up and gasped as they recognised the song.

Lance's grin got so wide, if his ears weren't there he'd been smirking in a circle.

_"Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase,"_ He started, having a hard time keeping his laughter back when Shiro couldn’t keep his eyes from rolling.

Lance only seemed more enthusiastic after that, travelling around the room and strumming the ukulele with energy bursting from his dance moves.

_"It means no worries- For the rest of your days! It's our problem-free philosophy! Hakuna Matata!"_

Shiro stumbled when Lance came up and bumped his hip, sending him a scolding glare which melted into mirth the second Lance directed that sunshiny smile at him.

Almost everyone joined his laughter. Lance went on with the song, and soon enough most of the kids sang with him in a chorus. Messily, tones all wrong and his ukulele kind of not doing what he wanted it to, the cabin rose up into movement and song. But it was good enough for a better mood.

Shiro watched from the side with his arms crossed, smiling gently at the scene unravelling before him. Everyone was suddenly so happy and had forgotten everything that had happened before, he was glad Lance had that certain kind of magic.

And, he looked so beautiful dancing around in the centre of the cabin.

His voice was sweet even with the song choice.

* * *

This was... very close. Extremely close for comfort.

Shiro blushed as he lay flat on his back, his side pushed up against Lance in the dark.

"Are you um.. are you comfortable?" He asked, his voice betraying his voice.

Lance’s warmth radiated through their pyjamas into his side, but it only made him uncomfortable. The bunks were kind of big but with Shiro’s size it was a squeeze; they were pressed together like sardines in a tin.

Shiro could feel how small Lance really was in comparison to himself like this.

"I'm fine," Lance whispered.   
"I don't mind, really. I have a ton of big siblings - I'm no stranger to bed-sharing. I’ve learned to stay on my side of the bed, I don't snore but I can’t promise I won't hit you. Stop worrying so much, big guy."

Lance gave him a soft punch to the arm, snickering, and Shiro could just make out the line of his jaw and neck as he looked at him.

Shiro looked up at the broken wood planks.

“Well, I’m not really used to it... I haven’t shared a bed in a while.” He whispered back. He heard Lance huff and felt the dip in the bed as he shuffled.

Without his consent, his memory took him back to Adam and many nights where he welcomed the closeness of another body, and where he would happily lean into his back or his chest, an arm tossed over his ex-fiancé to anchor him close.

Shiro’s mouth filled with a bitter taste.

"I'm very comfy.” Lance broke the silence, shifting to look up at Shiro. Lance fit a little snugly in these camp beds, but Shiro’s head touched the wooden board behind his pillow, and his ankles touched the other end. He had to curl his knees up.

“I'm lying in bed with this really buff dude, you see, and he's kinda... I mean, you’re hot, and adorable, so I'll be fine. This isn’t exactly a prison sentence.”

Thank god for Lance’s tired chuckle at the end to save Shiro from serious embarrassment. He swallowed tightly, feeling like a furnace, like his heartbeat could shake the rickety bedframe carrying their weight.

Fuck.

_Fuck._

He turned away from Lance to lie on his side, facing the cabin, pressing his face into the cool metal of his arm. Maybe Lance should learn to control is goddamn mouth… Maybe it’s just too easy to rile Shiro up. It was too easy after he had spent so long alone, to warm him up to the idea of-

“Alright, Goodnight Shiro.” Lance whispered. Shiro swallowed thickly.

“Goodnight Lance... No hard feelings?” He whispered back. Lance hummed in a non-committal way, his breathing evening out as he dropped away to sleep.

The idea of dating made Shiro feel sick. The idea of Lance put his heart on wings.

Shit. _Shit. Fucking shitting damn._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't updated this in a long long while because I go to University and want a nice future haha, but over the holidays I found some time to get it done!! Thanks for your patience guys I hope you like the update!


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